Welcome to the NBA 75, The Athletic’s countdown of the 75 best players in NBA history, in honor of the league’s diamond anniversary. We also will run features such as this one to complement certain players and moments throughout our series.

The basics of basketball haven’t changed in the 75 years since the NBA started — five players on each team are on the court, trading possessions, attempting to score while the other team tries to stop them from doing so.

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But what those five players are now doing as individuals has changed significantly.

The days of centers clogging up the lane, grabbing every rebound and creating chunky spacing on the court are over. Players are more versatile and less specialized. You aren’t a shooter or just a facilitator anymore. Whether in an offense with lots of movement or one that sees tons of isolation ball, players can do more as the game trends toward being positionless. More importantly, players are all over the court. That’s why triple-doubles are more common in the game than they ever have been.

In the NBA now, the triple-double shines, but it isn’t a stat that guarantees a win or leads a team to a championship. And each time it makes an appearance on a single line of the stat sheet, it’s an individual accomplishment. But a well-executed triple-double remains one of the most exciting statistical achievements for a player.

“It’s definitely fun to watch a guy get one,” longtime NBA coach Mike D’Antoni said. “If you do it, you are playing completely. Just flat-out playing. It’s something to see.”

The concept is simple — 10 or more in three of the following statistical categories: points, rebounds, assists, blocks and steals. Getting one — though more common now than it used to be — is far from simple, though. Of the 381 games that have been played this season, there have been 30 triple-doubles recorded.

A decade ago, there were 18 total triple-doubles during the 2011-12 NBA regular season. Last season, there were 142. As the game and its positions have evolved, that number will likely continue to go up. The days of having a point guard, a shooting guard, a small forward, a power forward and a center who all have very distinct jobs on the court are gone. (Except, of course, Wilt Chamberlain, who had 78 career triple-doubles and led the league in assists in 1968, just to prove he could.)

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“It used to be that a center could rebound and score, but he wasn’t getting assists. A guard was getting assists and scoring, but he didn’t need to get rebounds,” said Christopher Dempsey, reporter and analyst for Altitude Sports. “All of that has been turned on its head now. Players are being asked to do more because they are capable of doing more. They are growing up in their basketball lives doing all the things.”

Dempsey has been watching that closely in Denver, where Nikola Jokic is redefining what a center looks like — and piling up triple-doubles in the process. Jokic, who, as of this writing, has 62 and is tied with James Harden on the all-time list, is the nucleus of the Nuggets’ offense thanks to his proficiency in scoring, rebounding and passing. His efficiency and effective style of play landed him last season’s coveted NBA MVP award and hordes of fans, including young ones who will emulate his play. And multi-dimensional players such as Jokic are representative of how the talent across the league is trending.

And before Jokic was piling up triple-doubles, there was (and there is) Russell Westbrook. And before Westbrook, there were Hall of Fame multi-dimensional talents such as Jason Kidd in the 2000s and 1990s, Magic Johnson and Bird in the ’80s, and Oscar Robertson in the early ’70s and throughout the ‘60s. They were all turning heads with their play, but it wasn’t until the early ‘80s that the term “triple-double” gained traction.

Philadelphia Warriors guard Andy Phillip had the first recorded triple-double on Dec. 14, 1950, when he scored 17 points, grabbed 10 rebounds and dished out 10 assists against the Fort Wayne Pistons. Later that season, Syracuse Nationals big man Dolph Schayes lit up the box score with 18 points, 22 rebounds and 13 assists. Triple-doubles were happening, but they were rare and they weren’t a statistical milestone that reporters or fans focused on.

In a May 2021 interview with The New York Times, Robertson noted that no one cared about his overall stat line when he played. Triple-double? What was that?

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NYT: So if they didn’t call them triple-doubles, what did people say about your big statistical performances?

Robertson: Not very much. In those days, they focused on scoring and the blocking of shots. There wasn’t much publicity associated with it. It wasn’t thought of until they went back into the archives and saw what I had done. I was even surprised myself.

What Robertson did was surprising and unprecedented: he averaged a triple-double during the 1961-62 season with 30.8 points, 12.5 rebounds and 11.4 assists (the 899 dimes he dished were a league record that stood until Guy Rodgers had 908 in 1966-67) and had an NBA-record 41 that season. Robertson’s historic seasons weren’t a fluke. For the first five seasons of his career, he averaged 30.3 points, 10.4 rebounds and 10.6 assists. Robertson recorded 148 triple-doubles in his first six seasons.

But it was in the 1980s when the term “triple-double” started to catch on (the origins are hazy and have been claimed by or attributed to a few people), thanks to Magic’s multi-dimensional production. Players at every position, such as Hawks power forward Dan Roundfield, were taking notice. On April 8, 1983, Roundfield had 11 points, 10 rebounds and 10 assists (and a rookie named Dominique Wilkins had 34 points) in a blowout win over the Chicago Bulls.

”I was looking for the ‘triple-double,’ ” Roundfield said in a United Press International report. ”I was trying to get up there with Magic Johnson. It’s the first time I’ve done it in my career.

”Why did you think I kept passing the ball?” Roundfield joked in reference to Wilkins. ”I was giving him (Wilkins) passes where he couldn’t miss.”

The first mention we could find was a “triple double-digit” in The New York Times was in 1984, referring to … Washington Bullets center Jeff Ruland?!

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“The absence of the Knicks’ ailing big men has been a major factor in the season series against Washington, which has won all three previous encounters. The Knicks tried double-teaming Jeff Ruland in the second of those games, but the tactic didn’t work: He responded with a triple double-digit effort – 22 points, 12 rebounds and 10 assists.”

Regardless of who was getting them, the triple-double has become a statistical achievement to aspire to. But when Westbrook averaged 31.6 points, 10.7 rebounds and 10.4 assists in 2016-17 — the first and only other player since Robertson to average a triple-double in a season — and was named league MVP after amassing 42 triple-doubles, the stat drilled its way into the fan’s consciousness and has remained there since.

The Athletic news editor Erik Horne covered the Oklahoma City Thunder during the 2016-17 season for The Oklahoman, as the triple-double season was making its big comeback thanks to Westbrook.

“There was a stretch from Nov. 18 to Dec. 11 where Westbrook ripped off about nine triple-doubles in an 11-game span, including seven in a row, which at the time tied the third-longest streak of triple-doubles in NBA history,” Horne recalled. “That’s when you looked up, it wasn’t even the All-Star break yet, and this guy was averaging a triple-double every other game (12 in 24 games at that point).

“Westbrook became an event. The visiting crowds wanted him to get a triple-double, too.”

Westbrook has gone on to average a triple-double in three more seasons, including last season with the Wizards where he surpassed Robertson on the all-time list. Westbrook sits at the top with 189 total in his career.

That 2016-17 season, D’Antoni coached the Houston Rockets, who also boasted a player capable of racking up triple-doubles in James Harden (who finished with 22 that season).

He remembers “Westbrook watch” and said that it certainly influenced the game.

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“I don’t think there was a lot of talking about it at practice or anything, but when something like that is happening, guys see it and they think, ‘I bet I could do that, too,’” Harden said. “Players set the trends in this league. That year, Russ getting those triple-doubles was definitely a trend.”

D’Antoni doesn’t get too caught up in the numbers and what they all mean. But he’s witnessed a few big performances, like a 60-point triple-double for Harden in 2018.

“You see the energy it takes to get 60 points and, on top of that, all those assists and rebounds and look, it’s a monster game,” D’Antoni said. “If you see a player getting a triple-double, you can assume that guy really gave a lot and had a great game. You affected so many vital parts of the game if you get a triple-double, so yeah, it’s something special to see.”

Now, more players than ever have been accruing triple-doubles and the statistic is going to continue to evolve because of all the players who have made it special over the years. From Robertson to Westbrook, who have set the bar high, to those like Draymond Green, who doesn’t have flashy stat lines but has 30 career triple-doubles and has become one of the most impactful players in the league when he is on the court, to players who continue to soar like Giannis Antetokounmpo, who is as versatile as they come, the triple-double is always going to be a weapon.

The ability to get a triple-double translates into being a player who gives opponents fits whether or not the stat sheet is filled in three or more categories. Want to stop one of those players from scoring for a night? Fine. He can find his teammates. He can rebound on the offensive and defensive end. He can affect the spacing, draw defenders and open up the floor for others.

“Those individuals who are doing this consistently tend to be the best players on the court,” Dempsey said. “I think that’s why you are going to see that stat continue to elevate and become the gold standard.”

Related reading

Horne: NBA 75: At No. 46, Russell Westbrook is a mercurial, private perfectionist and the triple-double king
NBA 75: Complete countdown

(Illustration: Will McCabe / The Athletic; Photo: Vernon Biever / NBAE via Getty Images)