RecordReviewer [OP] | NBA

87 | 16 hours ago

Wild related stat that also shows how stats have inflated over time:

LeBron had 10 triple doubles in his 20’s

He had 11 at just age 39. He’s had 5 since turning 40.

Impulsive666

31 | 16 hours ago

We should calculate inflation adjusted stats.

JrueBall

15 | 15 hours ago

We really need someone to create a good cryptostatistics. It will stop the league from being able to constantly keep printing more statistics whenever they feel like it and devaluing what we currently have.

NightBijon | Warriors

2 | 15 hours ago

We can start manufacturing pictures of statistics maybe? If you have the picture you have the statistic

dwaite1 | Hornets

24 | 16 hours ago

His 20s were in a slower paced era. It’s not that it gets easier over time, it’s that pace and play style determine these things. It that were true then every decade would have more triple doubles than the previous. Late 90s and 00s should probably have the least.

BetweenTheBuzzAndMe | Charlotte Bobcats

19 | 15 hours ago

Pace is actually a very small part of the equation. check the pace column here: https://www.basketball-reference.com/leagues/NBA_stats_per_game.html

Pace hovered between 90.1 and 93.9 every year between 1994-95 and 2014-15, with the exception of an outlier 1999 season (which was a mess due to a lockout)… and has hovered between 98.2 and 100.3 every year between 2018-19 and the present. The game is roughly 9% faster than when LeBron entered the league in 2003-04.

What has changed, is players have gotten much more versatile offensively at every position over the last 20+ years, and it has gotten a lotttttt harder to play defense. Now, it’s seen as problematic if your primary scorer isn’t also facilitating for his teammates.

dwaite1 | Hornets

6 | 15 hours ago

I agree though on the versatility aspect. No one really needed to grab rebounds if they were facilitating in past generations. Roles were much more defined.

dwaite1 | Hornets

2 | 15 hours ago

Right, so in his 20s the pace was less than it was in the age 39 season and 40+ seasons.

It correlates (not saying it’s the only cause) pretty well to the data OP was sharing. I’m saying that it isn’t as simple as linear inflation over time. Pace was much higher in the 60s and 70s, so I’d imagine stats were higher then too.

FKJVMMP | MIL

2 | 6 hours ago

In his 20s he also played 13.2% more minutes than he did in his age 40 season. He plays fewer possessions per game now than he did in his 20s.

The game has changed in many more ways than pace, and those changes allow for higher stats (triple doubles in particular) much more than pace does.

kmoz | Mavericks

1 | 8 hours ago

Pace is a pretty large part of the equation on a statistic that has a critical breakpoint like a triple double. There used to be a ton of “near miss” triple doubles (8-9 rebound/assist games), many of which end up a triple double now because of a 5% higher shooting% and those extra ~10% more possessions a game.

Yes players are also doing more, but a 10% bump in possessions can like 5x the number of triple doubles.

mdCodeRed12

-4 | 14 hours ago

I sneezed on a guy from the front row once. Tech was called on me during the shot…player got a bucket for an and 1, a free throw, and the passing player got an assist. I sneezed toward that exact same player ten years ago and he respectfully told me to stfu…no flagrant though.
The game regularly allows a fourth step (thank you James Harden), there’s a phantom whistle up until the playoffs on superstar contact, and the league loves stats “going up”. Yes, players are more versatile, but this increase is due to multiple factors. I never thought id be an old dude talking about “back in the day” but sweet baby Jesus does watching this #### on tv make me long for basketball to be like it was in the 90s, 00s, and even up to a little more than a decade ago.

BetweenTheBuzzAndMe | Charlotte Bobcats

1 | 14 hours ago

the officiating is also part of “it’s gotten harder to play defense”

i7ive4thedrop | Nuggets

1 | 10 hours ago

Yeah but the players have gotten better, therefore 39 year old LeBron is better than the other LeBrons.

Professional-Rub152

-1 | 14 hours ago

Stats aren’t inflated. Teams stopped prioritizing defense over shooting. So now the league is full of dudes who can shoot with nobody who can guard them. Individual assists were always going up in this era.

Bron in his 30s was on teams with Kyrie, Klove, and JR smith on the floor at the same time. Every kick out was to a wide open dude who could for real shoot it. He didn’t have teams stacked with shooters like that in his early and mid 20s.

Antisystemization | Cavaliers

3 | 13 hours ago

They’re definitely inflated. LeBron’s second highest scoring season was in 2022.

heat_fan_ | Raptors

61 | 16 hours ago

This Lebron guy might be pretty good

disterb | 76ers

6 | 15 hours ago

yeah, mighg be an all-star someday

Bone_Dogg | Bulls

1 | 7 hours ago

Never gets old does it

EssentIYO | Magic

19 | 16 hours ago

The triple double is the new double double.

96powerstroker

-2 | 15 hours ago

Exactly. Assists which I think are tougher than rebounds are easier to get nowadays with the 20 steps they let the other guy take.

Kaizerx20 | Timberwolves

27 | 15 hours ago

This isn’t new, Stockton assists have been a thing before Stockton

FineOrganization2240

11 | 16 hours ago

The craziest part of this stat is that Russell Westbrook somehow found a way to squeeze into the 37-year-old leaderboard too before retiring. 😂

Mr_Cromer | Raptors

8 | 15 hours ago

Westbrook the triple double engine, even washed he managed 5

TomlinSteelers | 76ers

5 | 16 hours ago

Guy is going to be playing until he’s 50. Never seen anything like it

Forebes13

3 | 16 hours ago

He’s going to get a few more in Philly. This might be his most assist heavy year.

CozyKitten143

3 | 15 hours ago

At this point LeBron is just making longevity records look completely normal. 23 times compared to everyone else combined is an absurd stat.

Lyranx

2 | 16 hours ago

He gonna do it 30 more times when he 43+

nopenopenope246810 | Clippers

2 | 15 hours ago

Just give Mason Plumlee two more years and he’s coming for this one!

BasicSet6933

2 | 7 hours ago

That’s only regular season. Stockton made a triple double 39 years old in the playoffs. Four years older than second placed LeBron.

HikmetLeGuin

1 | 6 hours ago

LeBron is the Wilt of longevity.

LurkerFailsLurking | Nuggets

1 | 5 hours ago

How much do you have to lower the age before Lebron doesn’t have more triple doubles at or beyond that age than everyone else combined?

manimsoblack

1 | 25 minutes ago

It’s crazy that when I was still in highschool he was the youngest player to do all this shit. Now I’m going to my 20th reunion and he’s the oldest player to do all this shit. I’m glad to have witnessed the fuckery.

BenRichards303

0 | 15 hours ago

So does this make him the triple double GOAT? I’m sure some would argue does.

No-Brick-2854

-1 | 16 hours ago

No doubt Lebron is the goat and this is just another stat that shows it. But also the game has a lot more possessions now, and I think getting rebounds is easier with missed 3’s.

RecordReviewer [OP] | NBA

3 | 15 hours ago

LeBron is still a bit of an outlier for the bulk of his triple doubles.

As he’s gotten older, his scoring has had a relative drop, but he’s moved more towards being a PG on offense, and an off-ball PF on defense. That’s a near perfect combo for getting “easy” triple doubles. Even before the pace boom, he started increasing his triple doubles naturally as he became less of a point-forward, and more of a true facilitator on offense, while still having enough athletic juice in the tank to grab boards as a small-ball big on defense.

Sure pace impacted his first stint in Cleveland and Miami, but he always played with a true PG, and old-school PFs and Centers (you gotta remember, Bosh was one of the first stretch PFs to play small-ball 5). He just had a lot of bigger guys on the court getting rebounds and hadn’t transitioned to playing the PG role more when he wasn’t looking to score.

Tycam34

-4 | 14 hours ago

“Only x amount of players have played over 20 years and done x” wow yeah no shit. Apparently math and statistics don’t mean much to this group

confusedandsmellyman | Pistons

-5 | 16 hours ago

This just in, not many play until they’re over 38

Dwight-Meoward

20 | 16 hours ago

Because they can’t, not because they don’t want to

Lanky-Association952

2 | 13 hours ago

Maybe we need a 40+ league? Doesn’t golf have something like that.

saboay

-4 | 15 hours ago

…. yeah?

SometimesIBeWrong | Nets

6 | 15 hours ago

that’s….. that’s the point of the post. his longevity is absurd

Only 23 times in league history has a player recorded a triple double after turning 38. LeBron has done it 20 times.