In the midst of Russell Westbrook’s successful attempt to become the second player ever to average a triple-double over the course of a season one and a half things have become readily apparent. The fraction in that is that Russell Westbrook is amazing, which given his six All-Star appearances we sort of knew already, although without Kevin Durant’s shadow looming it’s become easier to appreciate. The whole number in that is that both fans and players do not appreciate everything that the man who Westbrook is supplanting in NBA record books stands for. That man “The Big O” Oscar Robertson averaged a triple double in the 1961-1962 season racking up 41 in 82 games (Westbrook has 41 in 79) was more than just the old answer to the Jeopardy clue “This player averaged a triple double per game in 1961-1962”.
Before exploring the man, his signature achievement should be expounded upon to explain the hoopla around it. A triple-double is when a player gets at least ten of a statistic; points, rebounds, assists, blocks, and steals with the most common kind of triple double being ten of each of those first three stats. You can also get a triple double by getting ten blocks and/or steals but that is rare today and was impossible in Robertson’s magical season as blocks and steals were only made official statistics starting in the 1973-1974 season. An interesting side note to this is that there were roughly 30 more possessions per game in 1961-1962 than today. This means there were 30 more chances for Robertson to get a point, rebound, or assist per game than Westbrook has had. This may make Westbrook’s season more incredible but Robertson manages to supersede that because if you took the averages of his first six NBA campaigns he maintains that triple double average.
The most important thing about Robertson is not his awe-inspiring statistical anomalies such as those listed above or the fact that he has the most triple-doubles in a career (181, the next highest is Magic Johnson with 138, Westbrook is tied with Wilt Chamberlain for fourth with 78). It is that without Oscar Robertson we would not have the modern NBA. As President of the fledgling NBA Players Association in the 1970s towards the end of his Hall of Fame career, he sued the NBA for an attempted merger with the American Basketball Association (which eventually did merge with the NBA in 1976 bringing the modern Spurs, Nets, Nuggets, and Pacers franchises). The 1970 merger plan he argued was depriving players of their free movement of labor. He also sought to vanquish “option clause” which bound a player to the team he was drafted by unless the team traded him.
This lawsuit, Robertson v. National Basketball Association, made it all the way to the Supreme Court and in his victory Robertson won players rights that still shape the game. These rights include, aside from the termination of the option clause, the right of a player to re-enter the draft after sitting out a year if he does not sign with the team who picked him, the eligibility of high schoolers in the NBA draft (since rescinded), and what we would now call restricted free agency. Upon entering restricted free agency a player can sign with any team he pleases, but his current team can offer to match that, unrestricted free agency options soon followed. This court decision was more important than any rebound, assist, or game winning shot Robertson or Westbrook has ever made as this allowed NBA wages to rise and along with an influx of stars since the 1980s has allowed the NBA to become one of the premier sporting organizations in the world.
Featured Image via Wikimedia Commons/The Sporting News Archives
