What Is a Double-Double in Basketball? What 1,916 of Them Show

A double-double is when a player reaches 10 or more in two of the five main box-score stats in a single game: points, rebounds, assists, steals and blocks. Twenty points and 12 rebounds is a double-double. So is 15 points and 11 assists. Ten in three categories is a triple-double, and ten in four is a quadruple-double.

That's the whole definition. What I wanted to know was how often it actually happens, so I went through the box score of every game from the 2025-26 NBA regular season, all 1,230 of them. NBA players put up 1,916 double-doubles and 136 triple-doubles. Not one of them involved 10 steals or 10 blocks.

Here's how the stat works, which combinations show up, who got the most of them, and whether they have anything to do with winning.

The Double-Double in Plain English

The NBA's own stats glossary defines a double-double as a "double-digit number total in two of the five categories in a game," and a triple-double as the same thing in three of the five. The five categories are points, rebounds, assists, steals and blocks.

A few things that trip people up:

• Ten counts. It's 10 or more, not more than 10. A 10-point, 10-rebound game is a double-double.

• A triple-double also counts as a double-double. When ESPN lists the season leaders in double-doubles, a triple-double is included. Nikola Jokić's 55 double-doubles in 2025-26 include his 34 triple-doubles. I counted the same way.

• Turnovers, fouls and made threes don't count. Ten turnovers is a bad night, not a double-double.

• It's one game, not a season. "Averaging a double-double" is a separate thing. That means a player's season averages are 10 or more in two categories, even if he doesn't get there every night.

• It's a stat, not a rule. Nothing happens in the game when a player gets one. There's no bonus and no stoppage. It's just a way to describe a well-rounded night.

I played basketball growing up, and I like this stat because it's hard to fake. You can't get one by scoring alone.

How Often It Happened in 2025-26

That works out to about 1.6 double-doubles a game. In a normal NBA game, you should expect at least one. Only 202 games all season didn't have any.

Triple-doubles are a different story. There were 136, or one about every nine games. Basketball-Reference's 2025-26 season totals show the same 136.

Most Double-Doubles Are Points and Rebounds

This is the part that surprised me. You can build a double-double from any two of the five categories, but almost all of them come from the same two.

Nearly three out of every four double-doubles were the big-man kind: points and rebounds. Point guards getting points and assists were a distant second.

Only two players all season got a double-double without scoring 10. Aaron Gordon had 8 points, 10 rebounds and 11 assists for Denver against Washington on January 17, 2026. Isaiah Hartenstein had 9 points, 20 rebounds and 10 assists for Oklahoma City at Washington on March 21, 2026.

And steals and blocks never got there. Nobody had 10 blocks or 10 steals in a game in 2025-26. The closest anyone came was Victor Wembanyama's 9 blocks at New Orleans on October 24, 2025, and that was a points-and-rebounds double-double anyway (29 points, 11 rebounds). Wembanyama led the league at 3.1 blocks a game, according to ESPN, and still never had a 10-block night. The most steals anyone had was 8, by Herbert Jones and Tyrese Maxey.

The 2025-26 Double-Double Leaders

ESPN's 2025-26 leaders list the same top five I got from the box scores: Towns 56, Jokić 55, Johnson 49, Wembanyama 42, Duren 41. The team record is how each player's team did in the games where he had a double-double.

Jokić's number is the one I keep looking at. He had a double-double in 55 of his 65 games, and 34 of those were triple-doubles. Towns had one more double-double, but he needed 10 more games to get there.

San Antonio went 35-7 when Wembanyama had a double-double. Detroit had two players on the list. The Pistons were 31-10 when Duren had one and 30-8 when Cunningham did.

As a Lakers fan, I'll take Dončić's line: 34 double-doubles and 8 triple-doubles, and the Lakers went 25-9 in those 34 games. Deandre Ayton added 22 double-doubles for the Lakers, and LeBron James had 17, three of them triple-doubles.

Do Double-Doubles Lead to Wins?

Mostly, yes. I matched every double-double to the final score.

The baseline is about 50%, because every game has a winner and a loser. A player with a double-double was on the winning team 60% of the time. With a triple-double, it was 65%.

The points-and-assists version won more often than points-and-rebounds, 65.7% to 57.9%. I'm not going to pretend I know exactly why from one season of data. And a double-double is no guarantee. Bam Adebayo's Heat were 17-18 in his 35.

Triple-Doubles Are More Common Than They Used To Be

Triple-doubles used to be rare enough to make the highlights by themselves. Here's the league-wide total for a sample of seasons, adding up every player's count in Basketball-Reference's season totals.

In 2009-10, the whole league had 23. In 2025-26, Jokić had 34 by himself.

The single-season record is still Westbrook's 42 in 2016-17, per Basketball-Reference's single-season leaders. Oscar Robertson's 41 in 1961-62 is second. Jokić's 34 in 2025-26 is tied for fourth with his own 2024-25 season and Westbrook's 2018-19.

On the career list, Westbrook leads with 209 regular-season triple-doubles. Jokić is second with 198, followed by Robertson (181), Magic Johnson (138) and LeBron James (125). As a Lakers fan, I like seeing Magic and LeBron both in the top five.

Averaging a Triple-Double for a Season

Getting a triple-double in one game is hard. Averaging one over a full season has happened seven times, by three players. NBA.com's story on Jokić in 2025 made him the third player ever to do it, and theScore covered him clinching it again in 2025-26. The numbers below are from Basketball-Reference's player pages for Robertson, Westbrook and Jokić.

The best single triple-double of 2025-26 was also Jokić's. On Christmas Day 2025, he had 56 points, 16 rebounds and 15 assists in a 142-138 overtime win over Minnesota, according to ESPN's box score and his Basketball-Reference game log. Dončić had 45, 11 and 14 in a win at Utah on December 18, 2025. Cunningham had 46, 12 and 11 against Washington on November 10, 2025.

The Quadruple-Double: Four of Them, Ever

A quadruple-double needs 10 in four categories, which means at least one of them has to be steals or blocks. That's why it's so rare, and why nobody could have one before 1973-74. The NBA's stats FAQ says steals and blocks weren't recorded until that season. Rebounds weren't recorded until 1950-51, so even the most common double-double, points and rebounds, can't be counted for the league's first four seasons.

Basketball-Reference credits four players with one quadruple-double each. The stat lines are from the Chicago Bulls' history of the first one and Basketball-Reference's Thurmond game log.

The Bulls' page also lists an earlier Olajuwon game, against Golden State on March 3, 1990 (29 points, 18 rebounds, 10 assists, 11 blocks). Basketball-Reference credits him with only one, so I'm going with four here and flagging the difference.

Nobody has had one since 1994. The closest anyone came in 2025-26 was Jalen Johnson, who had 31 points, 18 rebounds, 14 assists and 7 steals in a win at Utah on November 13, 2025.

Is There Anything Like It in Other Sports?

If you're a baseball person, like Steve, who coached some of my baseball teams, the closest thing I can think of is hitting for the cycle: a single-game stat line with its own name. The difference is that basketball gives one player five columns to fill in the same game, and a double-double only asks for two of them.

Quick Answers

What is a double-double in basketball? A double-double is when a player gets 10 or more in two of these five stats in one game: points, rebounds, assists, steals and blocks. The most common one is points and rebounds.

Does a triple-double count as a double-double? Yes. A triple-double is 10 or more in three categories, so it includes a double-double. ESPN's season double-double totals include triple-doubles.

How many double-doubles were there in the 2025-26 NBA season? I counted 1,916 in the 1,230 regular-season games, including 136 triple-doubles. That's about 1.6 a game.

Who had the most double-doubles in 2025-26? Karl-Anthony Towns of the Knicks had 56. Nikola Jokić had 55, Jalen Johnson 49, Victor Wembanyama 42 and Jalen Duren 41.

What is a quadruple-double? Ten or more in four of the five categories in one game. Basketball-Reference credits four in NBA history: Nate Thurmond (1974), Alvin Robertson (1986), Hakeem Olajuwon (1990) and David Robinson (1994).

Who has the most triple-doubles in NBA history? Russell Westbrook, with 209 in the regular season. Nikola Jokić is second with 198, per Basketball-Reference.

Final Thoughts

A double-double is simple: 10 in two categories in one game. In practice, it's mostly points and rebounds, it happens in more than four of every five NBA games, and teams win about 60% of the time when a player gets one. Triple-doubles went from 23 in the whole league in 2009-10 to 136 in 2025-26. Quadruple-doubles haven't happened since 1994.

The 2026-27 season tipped off on October 20, 2026. Through the first 14 games, all of them played by October 21, there were 22 double-doubles and no triple-doubles yet.

How I got the numbers: I pulled the box score for all 1,230 games of the 2025-26 regular season from ESPN's public game data, the same numbers that are on ESPN's game pages. I left out the All-Star games and the NBA Cup championship game, which doesn't count in regular-season stats. For every player who played, I counted how many of points, rebounds, assists, steals and blocks reached 10. My leaders match ESPN's official list, and my triple-double count matches Basketball-Reference exactly. The win rates and the breakdown by type are my own counts.

If you want more basketball, here's how long an NBA game lasts, how many games are in an NBA season and my top 5 centers of all time. And if you like rules explainers with data, I did the same for a power play in hockey, the infield fly rule and a safety in football.

Sources:

• NBA.com Stats Glossary: Double Doubles (DD2) and Triple Doubles (TD3)

• NBA.com Stats FAQ: when each stat started being recorded

• ESPN: 2025-26 NBA regular-season leaders (double-doubles)

• ESPN box score: Timberwolves at Nuggets, December 25, 2025

• Basketball-Reference: 2025-26 NBA player totals

• Basketball-Reference: single-season triple-double leaders

• Basketball-Reference: career triple-double leaders

• Basketball-Reference: most quadruple-doubles

• Basketball-Reference: Nikola Jokić 2025-26 game log

• Basketball-Reference: Nate Thurmond 1974-75 game log

• NBA.com: Emirates NBA Cup rules and format

• theScore: Jokić second player to average a triple-double in back-to-back seasons

• NBA.com (AP): Nikola Jokić becomes third player to average a triple-double for a season

• Chicago Bulls: The NBA's first recorded quadruple-double