Russell Westbrook’s NBA career was so much more than racking up triple-doubles, but it’s with that stat that he leaves his most notable legacy in the NBA record books.
The longtime NBA point guard announced his retirement Wednesday, ending a career that saw him earn nine All-Star nods, three assist titles, two scoring titles and the 2016-17 NBA MVP award. He also retires as the NBA’s all-time leader in triple doubles with 209.
Westbrook became the all-time triple-doubles leader in 2021, breaking a record that had been held by Oscar Robertson going back to the 1960s. However, it does not seem likely that Westbrook’s record will last as long as Robertson’s.
Let’s take a quick look at the all-time triple-double leaderboard and see if a few players stand out. Active players are in bold.
With Jokić needing only 11 triple-doubles to pass Westbrook, it seems quite likely we will have a new triple-double king very soon. He posted 34 last season and hasn’t posted fewer than 11 in a single season since 2017-18.
At 31 years old, Jokić has years to not only break Westbrook’s record by entering a new stratosphere of statistical production. We don’t know how long he will play — lord knows he’s never sounded like a guy who needs to be wrested from the game like some greats — but he doesn’t even need to play for long at his current pace.
As for the other four active players, James and Harden are likely too old to catch Westbrook, and Sabonis would need to up his pace considerably. Dončić, however, is interesting.
At only 27 years old, Dončić has plenty of career left in him and is 43.1% of the way to Westbrook’s career total. However, he has slowed down considerably on the triple-double front in recent years, with only five in 2024-25 and eight in 2025-26. The first season saw Dončić miss considerable time with injuries, and then he was traded to the Los Angeles Lakers where he shared ball-handling duties with LeBron James and Austin Reaves.
With James now on the Philadelphia 76ers, Dončić might start seeing triple-doubles like he did with the Dallas Mavericks, when he averaged 13.8 per season. He would need to average that pace for nearly nine seasons to reach Westbrook, to say nothing of Jokić.
To repeat, Jokić or Dončić catching Westbrook would not invalidate Westbrook any more than Westbrook’s record invalidated Robertson. It’s just a matter of fact that records are made to be broken and modern basketball encourages the conditions that lead to an ungodly number of triple-doubles for certain talents.
Read the full article here