Credit Russell Westbrook for this: He is consistent. No matter how many times reporters ask him about his historic triple-double tear, the Oklahoma City Thunder star maintains that it means nothing to him and he's only focused on winning.
On Friday, he recorded his 19th triple-double of the season, the highest total since the NBA-ABA merger in 1976, in a 96-86 loss to the Minnesota Timberwolves.
"It don't mean s---," Westbrook said, via The Oklahoman's Brett Dawson. "We lost."
It was not exactly Westbrook's most efficient performance. He scored 21 points on 7-for-23 shooting, including 1-for-10 from 3-point range, with 12 assists and 11 rebounds. He also had 10 turnovers. You can bet he's much more concerned with the turnovers and missed threes -- he's now 2-for-24 from deep in his last three games -- than the triple-double.
This loss marked the halfway point of Oklahoma City's season. In 41 games Westbrook has one more triple-double than he had last season, when he tied Magic Johnson for the most in decades. It continues to look like he's going to average a triple-double for the whole season, a feat that has only been accomplished once, by Oscar Robertson in 1961-62.
As we've noted before, though, Robertson's Cincinnati Royals averaged 124.9 possessions per game, while this year's Thunder average 97.4 possessions per game. What Westbrook is doing has never been done before.
