There have been about 8,100 games played since the WNBA’s inaugural season began in June of 1997; there may have been many more, but I’m erring on the side of caution. Since 1997, there have been 30 games played annually with 10 teams. This figure is based on the number of games played, which I was unable to find exactly. (They are now playing 40 games; they played 28 in the inaugural season. I estimated the number of games to be roughly thirty every year, but I’ll go with that number even though it may be higher. Additionally, there were eight teams initially, and there are now twelve, so I divided the difference.) In the 27-year history of the WNBA, there have only been 35 Triple-Doubles since the league’s founding. Caitlin’s got one of those now. A Triple-Double has only occurred in 0.0043% of the 8,100 games, based on my estimate of 35 Triple-Doubles. In the WNBA, a triple-double is extremely uncommon! Once more, it might be even lower because I’m very sure that more games have been played than that—I haven’t even included the playoff or championship games—than that %.
Since the WNBA’s founding, there have been countless Double-Doubles. This is demonstrated by the list of Double-Doubles (thanks to a fellow redditor!) that can be found here (Double Double Career statistics!). In the WNBA, a double-double is by no means uncommon. This demonstrates that, at least in my limited statistical analysis, it is EXPONENTIALLY more difficult to score a triple-double in the WNBA than a double-double. Caitlin has only been in 22 WNBA games thus far, but she now has the record for the most Triple-Doubles of any rookie. She scored a triple-double against the Liberty on Saturday and nearly scored one against Pheonix two games ago (one rebound away!). How could she not be the clear favorite for ROOKIE OF THE YEAR when all of this, along with all of the other records she’s broken and the amazing things she’s done for the WNBA since joining, are taken into account?
Here are some additional noteworthys about triple-doubles in the WNBA before we go into the data and look at why they are currently on the rise
In addition to tying Parker’s record for career triple-doubles, Ionescu recorded the first triple-double in league history on July 6 against Las Vegas, scoring 30 points. Parker’s third triple-double occurred in her 433rd career game, while Sabrina’s three came in just her 55th. In just 26 minutes on June 23 against her old team in Los Angeles, Parker not only played the fewest minutes with a triple-double in league history, but also became the first player to do so in under 30 minutes on the court. In addition to becoming the second player in postseason history to record a triple-double (sixteen years after Karl-Antonio Swoopes did so in 2005), Vandersloot tied her own WNBA record for most assists in a game on September 28, 2018, by dishing out the most assists in a triple-double, totaling 18. Centers Margo Dydek and Lisa Leslie dominated the paint, leading to two of the first three triple-doubles in league history to be points-rebounds-blocks rather than the typical points-rebounds-assists combo.
They continue to be the only two triple-doubles that included blocks as the third component in addition to points and rebounds, rather than assists. Parker, who recorded 17 rebounds in her first triple-double back in 2017, now holds the record for the most rebounds in a triple-double. Just two of the 16 triple-doubles in league history—Ionescu on June 12 and Temeka Johnson in 2014—came from players on the winning two teams. Why, then, are there so many more triple-doubles in 2022 than in prior seasons? We have to examine the numbers underlying the triple-double in order to find the solution. Note that all of the statistics below are based on games played up until the All-Star break in 2022. Finding the missing component is the first step, and as the numbers below show, the assist column has proven to be the largest obstacle to triple-doubles. Of the games in which a player has reached double-digit assists, there have only been 569, while there have been nearly 38,000 double-digit scoring games and over 5,200 double-digit rebound games.
Even though there were 21 fewer seasons and hundreds fewer games, there were nearly four times as many triple-doubles
There are a variety of sizes and shapes available for the triple-doubles. Consider Sabrina Ionescu’s 31-point, 13-rebound, 10-assist performance on Las Vegas’ home floor in 2022, or even Courtney Vandersloot’s 12 points, 10 rebounds, and 18 assists in Connecticut during the 2021 season. These players are just a few examples of the exceptional performances that Alyssa Thomas had in 2023 (2023). Not only may the distribution of metrics change, but so can the time it takes for players to get there. While Vandersloot’s triple-double occurred in a hard match against the Sun in which she played 44 minutes, the achievement is more versatile because Candace Parker and Courtney Williams have each achieved triple-double status in just 26 minutes. A bar graph where the y-axis represents the amount of triple-doubles and the x-axis indicates the number of WNBA seasons.
The graph indicates an increase in triple-doubles, especially in the seasons of 2022 (with nine) and 2023 (with fourteen). In the last three years, there has been a sharp rise in triple-doubles. Nor does it appear that players will stop making triple-doubles appear more and more natural. During the first two nights of 2024 WNBA competition, two triple-doubles have already been recorded. Triple-doubles have grown more prevalent, at least in part, because games have gotten faster. PACE, a gauge of a team’s average number of possessions in a game on both offense and defense, is monitored by the WNBA. The average possession count (PACE) in WNBA games has varied over time, going from roughly 75 in 1997 to 67 in 2001 and then up to over 80 in 2023.
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