4 Basic Triple-Double Statistics

Before taking a look of different models of triple-double, we’d like to look at some basic triple-double statistics of Russell Westbrook. First, let’s find out how many games Russ did and did not record a triple-double during his last 3-year span with OKC. Below is a bar graph, followed by some summary statistics of Westbrook’s total number of triple-doubles.

RussStats %>%  
  ggplot(mapping = aes(TripDbl, fill = TripDbl)) +
  geom_bar()

RussStats %>%  
  group_by(TripDbl) %>%  
  summarise(Count = n(),
            Prop = n()/nrow(RussStats)) %>%  
  mykable()

TripDbl	Count	Prop
No	133	0.5683761
Yes	101	0.4316239

Over the last 3 completed seasons of the 2010s, Russell Westbrook played a total of 234 games, and recorded a triple-double in 43.2% of the games (101/234), which means this statistic occured almost once in every two games Westbrook played.

We’d also like to know what Westbrook’s points, rebounds, and assists averages for each of his 3 triple-double seasons are:

RussAvgStats <- RussStats %>%  
  group_by(Season) %>%  
  summarise(AvgPTS = round(mean(PTS), 2),
            AvgAST = round(mean(AST), 2),
            AvgREB = round(mean(TRB), 2)) 
mykable(RussAvgStats)

Season	AvgPTS	AvgAST	AvgREB
2016-2017	31.58	10.37	10.67
2017-2018	25.35	10.25	10.05
2018-2019	22.95	10.74	11.05

Russ’ assist and rebound averages are quite consistently across the 3 seasons. Meanwhile, there’s a decrease in points per game after each season, especially a significant 6-point drop-off between 2016-17 and the following season, 2017-18. This decline in Westbrook’s points can be explained by the addition of Paul George to the Thunder roster in the summer of 2017. The season before that, 2016-17, a common theme for every OKC games was a one-man Russell Westbrook show, where Russ dominated the basketball in almost every single possession and thus was a high-volume scorer. Once George arrived, he became Westbrook’s co-star and took over some of Russ’ offensive load, including getting buckets, and as a result, Westbrook’s scoring average went down for each of the next two seasons.

We’re going to continue with the number of triple-double Russ recorded in each season.

RussStats %>%  
  ggplot(mapping = aes(TripDbl)) +
  geom_bar(aes(fill = TripDbl)) +
  facet_wrap(~ Season)

RussStats %>%  
  group_by(Season) %>%  
  summarise(NumTripDbl = count(TripDbl == "Yes"), 
            Games = n(), 
            Pct = round(NumTripDbl*100/Games, digits = 2)) %>% 
  mykable()

## Warning: `data_frame()` is deprecated as of tibble 1.1.0.
## Please use `tibble()` instead.
## This warning is displayed once every 8 hours.
## Call `lifecycle::last_warnings()` to see where this warning was generated.

Season	NumTripDbl	Games	Pct
2016-2017	42	81	51.85
2017-2018	25	80	31.25
2018-2019	34	73	46.58

We see that during the first year without Kevin Durant, Russ recorded a triple-double in more than half of the games (42/81). In 2018-19, though playing a slightly fewer amount of games compared to the previous 2 seasons, almost half of Russ’ games resulted in a stat line of double figures in 3 categories. 2017-18 saw the fewest proportion of Russ’ games with all double digits in points, rebounds, and assists; but despite this, he did manage to average a triple-double for the whole season.

We’re also interested in looking at some notable figures recorded alongside triple-double. Let’s find out how many triple-double games Westbrook had with 30, 40, 50 or more points; 20 or more assists; 0 turnovers; 10 or more turnovers (which is often called “triple-double trouble” in the NBA world); perfect shooting from the field and from the free-throw line; and less than 30 minutes of playing time.

RussStats %>%  
  filter(TripDbl == "Yes") %>%  
  summarise(`30+ PTS` = count(PTS >= 30),
            `40+ PTS` = count(PTS >= 40),
            `50+ PTS` = count(PTS >= 50),
            `20+ AST` = count(AST >= 20),
            `10+ TOV` = count(TOV >= 10), # triple-double trouble
            `No TOV` = count(TOV == 0),
            `No FG misses` = count (FG == FGA),
            `No FT misses` = count (FT == FTA),
            `< 30min` = count(Minutes < 30)) %>%  
  mykable() %>% 
  scroll_box(width = "100%")

30+ PTS	40+ PTS	50+ PTS	20+ AST	10+ TOV	No TOV	No FG misses	No FT misses	< 30min
31	9	3	3	5	0	1	19	6

As shown by the above table, Westbrook had some remarkable performances including multiple triple-double games with more than 30, 40, 50 points, and at least 20 assists, which indicates how great he was during his last 3-year run with OKC. It is also worth noting that Westbrook had at least a turnover in every triple-double game (no 0 TOV games), which is understandable, due to his playing style and high offensive usage rate.

In the next two sections, we’re going to look at the connections between triple-double and some variables of both categorical and numerical types.