Hating on Russell Westbrook’s triple-doubles doesn’t make you smart

One of the best parts of watching Russell Westbrook break Oscar Robertson’s record for the most triple-doubles in a season was the reaction of the fans throughout. When he got to nine assists against the Nuggets, after reaching double digits in points and rebounds, the game became an emotional roller coaster. He would penetrate and dish the ball out to an open teammate, and the fans would stand and roar in suspense as the shot went up, and then recline in disappointment when the shot bounced off the rim.

It wasn’t a severe disappointment, though, the fans were having fun. They desperately wanted Westbrook to break the record, just as they did against the Suns, when Phoenix purposely fouled to stop Westbrook from achieving it.

Another great part of the whole journey was what happened after Westbrook did break the record. Numerous NBA players tweeted and instagrammed their congratulations and surprise at the feat. LeBron James, who is a big fan of Robertson, had a video marveling at Westbrook breaking a record that he thought would stand forever.

Then in the Thunder’s last game, during a special presentation held for Westbrook for his feat, Oscar Robertson himself led the crowd in MVP chants for the man who surpassed him.

Thank goodness for fans and players who still think of triple-doubles as impressive feats. At least there are people who can still see the wonder in such an achievement — people who do not mistake their disillusionment and the destruction of great things for intelligence.

Before this season, there were whispers that Westbrook could very well average a triple-double for 82 games. Or at least, there was the belief that if it could be done, Westbrook, with his high motor and a history of racking up numbers when Kevin Durant was injured in 2015, was most likely to do it. This was back when we still thought of triple-doubles as worthwhile — simpler times when a triple-double was a clear indicator that a player had done well in three of the most important measures that we have for player performance.

Now, points, assists, and rebounds are apparently overrated.

The argument behind this disdain is that there’s nothing magical that happens after the 10th point, rebound, or assist, that the allure of the achievement only exists because human beings are attracted to round numbers. There’s little difference between a performance that ends in 30, 10, 10, and one that ends in 29, nine, nine.

Westbrook supporters can point to him making history with numbers that we have always seen as spectacular, and say that he should win MVP because he did something that we have always considered good and difficult, and he did it for an entire season. And his team is only eight wins worse than when it had the second-best player in the league.

In order for supporters of the other MVP candidates to make a case for their choice, they have to minimize the triple-double. What was once great, no longer is. The Rockets tweeted a subliminal shot at Westbrook, suggesting that triple-doubles don’t matter compared to wins, even though they are the first to celebrate when Harden does get a triple-double.

In this MVP argument, triple-doubles are only cool and great when certain players do it. Otherwise, it’s an arbitrary measurement, unlike factoring in team wins in an individual award.

Then there’s the performative intelligence aspect of the debate, in which people feel as if they have to prove they’re smarter than the “common” fan. These people feel like they shouldn’t be susceptible to emotions and round numbers. They have to dig deeper, and find the most obscure of stats — anything that can strip a wonderful achievement, like a triple-double, of its power — to show that they’re in the know, and everyone else is not.

This is a radical misunderstanding of what intelligence is. Intelligence is not nihilism. It is not Bart Simpson walking around in an “Everything Sucks” shirt. Stats and analytics don’t exist to be used for public posturing of intellectual superiority. They exist to add to the wonder of things, not to tear them down. This new trend of being unmoved by great performances has become almost as bad as dunk truthers, who rush to any video of a great dunk to yell about why people shouldn’t be impressed by it. Nothing about that is interesting, cool, or smart. It’s just boring.

Before the season, the prospect of Westbrook averaging a triple-double was ridiculous in the best sense. Now, after 82 games and constant coverage of it, the feat has become almost distasteful. Just like hipsters when people become enamored with a popular thing, detractors are only now claiming that Westbrook’s feat is lacking in any real substance.

Lastly, there’s an overaccumulation of knowledge, a grand library of information, stats, and article after article on the same subjects that wears out our emotional capacity just a few hours after the event itself. There’s an overabundance of references for every game, play, and in-game situation imaginable, which should enlighten the masses, but has rather worn everyone out.

Fernando Pessoa once wrote on this phenomenon through a character named Ibsen’s Peer Gynt, who became overwhelmed by a thread of silk:

“I’m riding a tram and, as is my habit, slowly absorbing every detail of the people around me. By ‘detail’ I mean things, voices, words. In the dress of the girl directly in front of me, for example, I see the material it’s made of, the work involved in making it — since it’s a dress and not just material — and I see in the delicate embroidery around the neck the silk thread with which it was embroidered and all the work that went into that. And immediately, as if in a primer on political economy, I see before me the factories and all the different jobs: the factory where the material was made; the factory that made the darker colored thread that ornaments with curlicues the neck of the dress’ and I see the different workshops in the factories, the machines, the workmen, the seamstresses.

‘My eyes’ inward gaze even penetrates into the offices, where I see the managers trying to keep calm and the figures set out in the account books, but that’s not all: beyond that I see into the domestic lives of all those who spend their working hours in these factories and offices ... A whole world unfolds before my eyes all because the regularly irregular dark green edging to a pale green dress worn by the girl in front of me of whom I see only her brown neck ... I grow dizzy. The seats on the tram, of fine, strong cane, carry me to distant regions, divide into industries, workmen, houses, lives, realities, everything. I leave the tram exhausted, like a sleepwalker, having lived a whole life.”

It’s hard not to fall prey to this age of hyper information, where spectacular things can grow old within a few hours, but I hope that we have not reached the point of great achievements in the NBA being disregarded as monotonous or overrated. Because as a fan, analyst, or writer, the immediate inclination is always to wonder at the sport. The science should elevate that sense. The science is not there to pull out the thread to the point of exhaustion and anxiety.

Westbrook has averaged a triple-double over an 82-game NBA season, in a league of 30 teams. He’s achieved something only done once before, in 1962, when the league only had nine teams. The numbers are round and simple, but they’re still incredible. A lot of players have come close, but only Westbrook has done what he has done. And if the players themselves, the ones who know firsthand the difficulty of the work, think it’s a commendable feat, I hope we’re not at the point of discounting even their wonder for our own selfish reasons.