The different kinds of Russell Westbrook triple-doubles

To be clear: Russell Westbrook’s 2016-17 season is one of the, I dunno, five best individual basketball seasons of all-time. He is “the poster child for fully realized human potential.” Westbrook has invented the idea of playing basketball from a place of being deeply, perpetually offended.

Still, we’re left with this bitter aftertaste, post-exit interview. That’s because: the goal of a basketball team — and all the scores of employees and millions of dollars underneath it — is never, ever to create one of the best individual basketball seasons of all-time. The goal is — always — to win, and the Oklahoma City Thunder for the most part failed at this. Their roster is not an artistic collage. Actually, their roster is what made Westbrook’s should-be-impossible stat line possible: Westbrook was only doing so damn much on the court because there was so damn much to do.

The comparison here is Kobe Bryant in 2005-06, chucking up 35.1 points per game — a career best by nearly four points nightly — for a team doomed to its own first-round exit:

Westbrook’s task this year was so mighty that he even shot more times per minute than Bryant did at his ball-hoggiest.

Here’s a bizarre corner of basketball history that Westbrook and the Thunder are marooned on together: in any game in his career where Westbrook has scored 40 or more points, regular season or playoffs, his team has won 19 games and lost 20. This is bizarre because virtually all of the league’s all-time scorers* lead their teams to huge positive records on the nights when they catch fire and go for 40 or more. Michael Jordan went 147-64; Allen Iverson went 63-26; LeBron James is 58-17 so far. Shaquille O’Neal (52-9), Larry Bird (46-6), and Karl Malone (39-9) all had individual records over 80%. (Glen Rice, somehow, went 15-1.) Bryant himself, despite those dismal down-years after O’Neal and before Gasol, went 92-43.

Of the 42 players who have at least 20 different 40-point nights in their careers, Westbrook is the only one, so far, to have a losing record.

Things don’t improve when Westbrook manages to get up to 50 points, either, even though that’s inherently some type of season-best performance. Oklahoma City has just three wins against three losses in those games. Contemporaries like James Harden (5-0), Kevin Durant (4-0), and even Jamal Crawford (3-0) have never lost when scoring 50 or more.

Westbrook getting a triple-double** has been helpful for the Thunder. The team has won 71 games and lost 16 when Westbrook gets there, a winning percentage better than 80 percent. But there are subspecies of triple-double, if you will, some of which are more helpful than others. Like, when Westbrook scores 40 or more in a triple-double, the team’s record dips, comparatively, to 7–5 (58.3 percent).

Even more relevant than the number of points Westbrook scores in a triple-double is the number of shots he takes. When he takes more than 25 shots to get to a triple-double — his average this regular season was 24 shots per game — the Thunder’s record is just 14–11. (Historical triple-double maestro Jason Kidd was just 1-6 in his career in similar games.) If Westbrook gets over 30 shots a game — again, while still racking up over 10 rebounds and over 10 assists — the Thunder are a limp 6–7.

I’m not sure which is the chicken and which is the egg here. In these high-volume triple-double games, does Westbrook furiously try to shoot his team back into the lead in the second half — trying to overcome a deficit that was probably created when he was on the bench? Or does he command the ball often from the start, disrupting offensive rhythm? Whatever the case, relying on Westbrook to pull off these Herculean-style triple-doubles is both amazing to witness and also not a winning strategy. Patrick Beverley is right.

What about when Westbrook gets a triple-double with at least 15 assists? Now the Thunder get real tough to beat: they’re 15–2. That’s a huge step in the right direction.

But now we arrive at our ultimate fun fact. It’s hard to believe. I’ve quintuple-checked this and it still doesn’t feel possible. On nights when Russell Westbrook gets a triple-double in under 20 field goal attempts, the Thunder have won 36 times and lost…no times.

In retrospect: the moment that Durant started taking meetings in the Hamptons, the primary goal should have been to surround Westbrook with as many capable veterans as possible, who could each efficiently generate their own handful of shots a night. While developmental projects like Alex Abrines or Jerami Grant may pay off in the long run, the Thunder may have just spent the last nine months investing in a future they don’t really have.

Next: The Jazz are creating a cross-match advantage against the Clippers

Westbrook free agency watch is already here. It’s 14 months away. This means Oklahoma City has, like, the narrowest championship window of all-time. There is no better moment, or reason, to push all the chips into the middle.

*Searchable scoring statistics start at the 1963-64 season, cutting off the most insane Wilt Chamberlain years, among others.
**Searchable triple-double statistics start at the 1983-84 season.