{"id":810180,"date":"2026-08-12T21:09:17","date_gmt":"2026-08-12T21:09:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/810180\/"},"modified":"2026-08-12T21:09:17","modified_gmt":"2026-08-12T21:09:17","slug":"russell-westbrook-nbas-triple-double-king-retires-after-18-seasons","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/810180\/","title":{"rendered":"Russell Westbrook, NBA&#8217;s triple-double king, retires after 18 seasons"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.basketball-reference.com\/players\/w\/westbru01.html\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Russell Westbrook<\/a>, the 2016-17 NBA MVP and one of only three players to average a triple-double for a season, announced his retirement Wednesday after 18 years.<\/p>\n<p>The star point guard averaged 20.9 points, 6.9 rebounds and 8.0 assists per game over his NBA career from 2008-26, during which he played for seven teams, most notably the Oklahoma City Thunder.<\/p>\n<p>His 209 triple-doubles are the most in NBA regular-season history.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cSometimes you don\u2019t even know when you\u2019ve already watched the end,\u201d Westbrook, 37, posted on social media, along with a <a href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/russwest44\/status\/2087607645540585686?s=20\" rel=\"nofollow\">retirement video<\/a> narrated by Oscar-winning actor Michael B. Jordan.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cYou had to be there. And now it\u2019s over.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Known for his elite athleticism and dazzling play-making, Westbrook spent his first 11 seasons with the Thunder, who drafted him out of UCLA with the No. 4 overall pick ahead of their inaugural season in Oklahoma City.<\/p>\n<p>Westbrook was teammates with Kevin Durant for eight of those seasons, a pairing that resulted in a trip to the 2012 NBA Finals and three more berths in the Western Conference Finals.<\/p>\n<p>While a championship eluded Westbrook, he retires as a nine-time All-Star, a two-time NBA scoring leader and a three-time NBA assists leader. He was part of the USA team that won a gold medal at the 2012 Olympics.<\/p>\n<p>Westbrook won NBA MVP after a 2016-17 season in which he averaged 31.6 points, 10.7 rebounds and 10.4 assists per game.<\/p>\n<p>That was the first of four seasons in which Westbrook averaged a triple-double. The first three came consecutively.<\/p>\n<p>The only other players to average a triple-double for a season were Oscar Robertson, who did it once, and Nikola Jokic, who has done it twice.<\/p>\n<p>The 6-4 Westbrook also played for the Houston Rockets, Washington Wizards, Los Angeles Lakers, Los Angeles Clippers, Denver Nuggets and \u2014 in what proved to be his final season in 2025-26 \u2014 Sacramento Kings.<\/p>\n<p>Westbrook ranks 14th in NBA history in points (27,176) and fifth in assists (10,351).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Russell Westbrook, the 2016-17 NBA MVP and one of only three players to average a triple-double for a&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":810181,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[7,4056,300,11648,6,9348,254,312],"class_list":["post-810180","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nba","tag-basketball","tag-kings","tag-lakers","tag-michael-b-jordan","tag-nba","tag-retires","tag-russell-westbrook","tag-thunder"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/117084590164259825","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/810180","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=810180"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/810180\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/810181"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=810180"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=810180"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=810180"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}