LeBron James, King of the ‘Almost’ Triple-Double

Mar 10, 2015; Dallas, TX, USA; Cleveland Cavaliers forward LeBron James (23) drives against Dallas Mavericks forward Chandler Parsons (25) at American Airlines Center. Mandatory Credit: Matthew Emmons-USA TODAY Sports

So far in his career, Lebron James has racked up 37 triple-doubles, already the seventh most in NBA history and only behind Oscar Robertson (181), Magic Johnson (138), Jason Kidd (107), Wilt Chamberlain (78), Larry Bird (59) and Fat Lever (43). Based on player career assist, rebound and point averages, and the list of players who have achieved triple-doubles, I modeled a function for “expected triple-doubles per game”. Below are listed the results for the top-10 in career triple-doubles.

Top-10 in Career Triple-Doubles vs. Expected Triple-Doubles. Created by Mika Honkasalo

The model here can get a bit funky, and there are multiple factors that create uncertainty. Players like Grant Hill have been injured for parts of their career which creates some inherent weirdness. Wilt averaged 22.9 rebounds per game for his career which is enough to shift the averages at least a bit. Plus there have only been so many triple-doubles in NBA history.

By this method, LeBron is producing the least amount of triple-doubles out of any player in NBA history compared to what his average statistics suggest. Based on those numbers (with uncertainty included), LeBron should have reasonably produced  around 53 to 73 triple-doubles instead of 37, placing him fifth in the all time rankings. If you played LeBron’s career in a computer with his statistics you would get a triple-double count between those numbers the majority of the time.

But hey, some are always going to be underachievers.

LeBron has a weirdly evenly distributed assists per game numbers, which produces the triple-double results we see from him. The typical distribution for basically any statistical category typically looks like this.

Tim Duncan’s Career FGM Distribution. Created by: Mika Honkasalo

Tim Duncan has made an average of 7.9 field goals per game in his career. And the distribution curve is shifted ever so slightly to the left, with a longer tail of ‘good’ games spread out to the right. Do this exercise for most players on most of their statistics and that is what an NBA career distribution looks like in regular counting stats. The approximate likelihood refers to the probability of Duncan playing a zero field goal game based on his distribution.

LeBron James Career Assist Distribution. Created by: Mika Honkasalo

LeBron James Career Rebound Distribution. Created by: Mika Honkasalo

LeBron James for his career has averaged 7.1 rebounds and 6.9 assists, so the charts should look very much the same. However, the rebounding chart shows a more common distribution, and highlighted in the red box is the fact the frequency of nine rebound games falls faster than LeBron’s assists drop, but more games are distributed into over to the right side of the curve.

LeBron James has 93 games of 9 assists, but only 53 with 10, compared to 110 8 assist games. Almost six times the jump from 9 to 10 than 8 to 9. Whereas LeBron’s rebounds fall at even increments from 134 to 108 to 81. Also, LeBron has reached the 10+ assist mark in only 15.9 percent of his games, which is a very low mark. Stephen Curry is averaging 6.9 assists for his career, but has reached 10+ assists in 19.6 percent of his games. Ty Lawson in 21.1 percent with 6.5 assists. Russell Westbrook is at 7.1 assists and 22.1 percent.

LeBron has been unlucky not to hit more than 37 triple doubles. To date he has 303 games with 7+ Ast, 7+ Reb, 162 with 8+Ast, 8+Reb and 71 with 9+ Ast, 9+ Reb; but only 37 triple-doubles. That’s weird.