Domantas Sabonis could not have made an NBA All-Star crew this season, however his exceptional statistical consistency goes to make it extremely troublesome to disclaim him an All-NBA slot. On Monday, the Sacramento Kings huge synthetic a little bit of NBA historical past when he recorded his tenth level and his tenth rebound on the exact same play. That gave him his 54th consecutive double-double.
That breaks a 13-year-old document set by Kevin Love throughout his time with the Minnesota Timberwolves for the longest consecutive streak of double-doubles because the ABA/NBA merger. The massive second got here within the third quarter, when teammate Keegan Murray was blocked. Sabonis rebounded the miss and scored on a putback, giving him each level and rebound No. 10 in the identical possession.
As spectacular as Sabonis’ document is, he is received an extended technique to go earlier than he touches the pre-merger document. Between 1964 and 1967, Wilt Chamberlain earned double-doubles in 227 consecutive video games. That places Sabonis 173 double-doubles behind the Large Dipper. To succeed in him, Sabonis would want to place up a double-double in all 11 of Sacramento’s remaining regular-season video games in addition to mainly each sport for the following two seasons.
Nonetheless, even when Sabonis cannot catch Chamberlain this season, he does have extra historical past in entrance of him. At his present tempo, Sabonis is a near-lock to interrupt the document for many double-doubles in a single, post-merger season. That document is at the moment held by Hakeem Olajuwon, who put up 72 of them within the 1992-93 season. Sabonis now has 67 with 11 video games to play, giving him an opportunity to succeed in 78. If he does so, that could be a document that can probably stand for years to come back. Within the trendy NBA, most gamers do not even play in 78 video games, a lot much less publish double-doubles in all of them.
Sabonis will not break the triple-doubles document this season, however he is fairly excessive on that listing as effectively. With 25 of them up to now this season, he’s already tied for ninth in historical past. Russell Westbrook’s document of 42 seems as daunting on paper as Chamberlain’s 227-game double-double streak, however even reaching the highest 10 as a middle is a exceptional achievement. He, Chamberlain and Nikola Jokic are the one gamers to take action.
Even in an period through which statistical information are damaged extra often than ever, what Sabonis is doing now stands out. Consistency is a rarity within the load-management period. What Sabonis does each single evening is arguably the most important cause for Sacramento’s success since buying him. Now, he has the document to show it.