Views from OKC: The stat-padding argument must stop

Views from OKC is a daily diary about the current state of the OKC Thunder. Today we take a look at the argument surrounding Russell Westbrook and his season triple-double average.

Last night Russell Westbrook officially cemented himself in NBA history – he became only the second player to average a triple-double for an entire season. It’s remarkable, something that was deemed nearly impossible in this day and age by The Book of Basketball writer Bill Simmons.

But here we are in 2017. Westbrook haters claim this happened because the 6’3 point guard “stat pads,” that he plays the game to accumulate unfathomable statistics instead of trying to win. The conversation flamed up again last night as Russ seemed to be passing up open looks in the name of surpassing Oscar Robertson’s 41-triple-doubles-in-a-season record.

Well that’s according to some NBA fans.

I get it. If you don’t watch this team night-in and night-out it is easy to assume that last night Westbrook was actively searching for assists. He wasn’t hunting for assists to break Oscar’s record though; he was looking to get his teammates involved in the offense with only three games left before the postseason.

Don’t believe me? Let Russ tell you then.

When someone uses a curse word as naturally as Russ does in the above video you know he’s not playing around. I talked about it yesterday before the game: the Thunder need to find contributions from Russ’ supporting cast if they want to make any noise in the playoffs. Russ wasn’t feeling his shot so he deferred to creating for others.

When you’re great at something, haters tend to follow. And as an admitted Westbrook-hater for virtually his entire career, I get why some people may not enjoy his style. But to say the man is “stat-padding” is completely disrespectful to the hours and hours of work he’s put in to get to this point.

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If it was so easy to average a triple-double by stat-padding don’t you think that at least one other person would have accomplished the feat within the last 50 years? Don’t you think that in a league full of narcissists, someone would have reached the mark?

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There’s a reason this hasn’t happened since the 1960’s and there’s a reason virtually every former NBA player is backing Russ for MVP. They – the actual human beings who have experienced the toils of an NBA season – realize how special this season from Russ is.

Is Zach Lowe correct in saying Westbrook’s rebound numbers are inflated? Maybe a little bit, but it’s also a feature of Billy Donovan’s gameplan to help get his team out in transition. In fact the Thunder are 35-18 when Westbrook records 10 or more rebounds in a game.

And a final word to the stat-padding haters out there. Even if it were happening, who freaking cares? The fact of the matter is that Russell Westbrook is one of two players in NBA history able to accumulate all of these stats for an entire season.

He doesn’t need to be your pick for MVP. But summing up a historic season and Herculean effort to get to the playoffs to “stat-padding” is simply ridiculous.