Move over Oscar Robertson. Russell Westbrook is the NBA's new triple-double standard.
The Washington Wizards star set a career record with his 182nd triple-double, amassing 28 points, 21 assists and 13 rebounds in a 125-124 loss to the Atlanta Hawks on Monday. Westbrook tied Robertson's record of 181 with 33 points, 19 rebounds and 15 assists in a win over the Indiana Pacers on Saturday.
Westbrook eclipsed the record when he grabbed his 10th rebound with 8:30 remaining in the fourth quarter. The moment came during a 19-1 run that cut Atlanta's lead from 19 to one. He already had 21 points and 16 assists. The Atlanta crowd responded to Westbrook's history-making rebound with chants of "Russell."
Westbrook missed a potential game-winning 3-pointer in the final seconds. Afterwards, he sought out the game ball from officiating crew chief Tom Washington before accepting congratulations from his peers.
Robertson's record stood for nearly 50 years from the final triple-double of his 14-year career on March 24, 1974. Westbrook is in the 13th season of his career and has played 100 fewer games than Robertson.
Magic Johnson's 138 career triple-doubles are third on the all-time list. No other active player has reached the century mark. Injured Los Angeles Lakers superstar LeBron James is sitting on 99 career triple-doubles.
"The things he’s been able to do, hopefully, we will say, ‘Give him his love, give him his respect,’" Johnson told The Athletic's David Aldridge after Westbrook posted his ridiculous 14-point, 21-rebound, 24-assist triple-double last week. "This is really big. This is something I couldn’t even do. I know how big it is."
Robertson is no stranger to Westbrook coming for his records. The Hall of Famer's single-season triple-double record of 41 in 1961-62 stood until Westbrook's 42 during his 2016-17 MVP campaign. At the time, those two seasons marked the only times a player had ever averaged a triple-double for an entire season.
"I could not be happier for him," Robertson wrote for The Undefeated in 2017, when Westbrook broke his single-season record. Robertson even predicted in that same column four years ago, "If he stays healthy, there’s no reason [Westbrook] couldn’t eventually break my career record of 181 triple-double games."
Westbrook has since averaged a triple-double three more times, including this season. He entered Monday averaging 22 points, 11.6 rebounds and a league-high 11.5 assists per game. Westbrook could fail to log a single point, assist or rebound in Washington's final last games and still finish with a triple-double average.
"I honestly believe there's no player like myself, and if people want to take it for granted, sorry for them," he said recently, via NBC Sports' Chase Hughes. "I'm pretty sure if everybody could do it, they would do it. I honestly make sure I impact the game in many ways every night; defending, rebounding, passing, whatever it is my team needs from me to win. That’s what I do. I really don’t ... care what people think about it."
Over the first six seasons of his career, Robertson averaged 30.4 points, 10.7 assists and 10 rebounds per game, even if his 1961-62 campaign was the only one in which he averaged a triple-double. Since the start of the 2015-16 season, Westbrook had averaged 25.5 points, 10.1 assists and 9.9 rebounds per game. He would need 103 rebounds over the final four games of the season to get to even 10 for the six-year period.
Westbrook's 11 straight triple-doubles during the 2018-19 season broke Wilt Chamberlain's previous record of nine. The Wizards star's 14 triple-doubles in April of this season also broke Chamberlain's record for triple-doubles in a month. Really, any way you slice it, Westbrook is the NBA's triple-double champion.
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Ben Rohrbach is a staff writer for Yahoo Sports. Have a tip? Email him at rohrbach_ben@yahoo.com or follow him on Twitter! Follow @brohrbach
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