Domantas Sabonis may not have made an NBA All-Star team this season, but his remarkable statistical consistency is going to make it incredibly difficult to deny him an All-NBA slot. On Monday, the Sacramento Kings big man made a bit of NBA history when he recorded his 10th point and his 10th rebound on the very same play. That gave him his 54th consecutive double-double.
That breaks a 13-year-old record set by Kevin Love during his time with the Minnesota Timberwolves for the longest consecutive streak of double-doubles since the ABA/NBA merger. The big moment came in the third quarter, when teammate Keegan Murray was blocked. Sabonis rebounded the miss and scored on a putback, giving him both point and rebound No. 10 in the same possession.
Domantas Sabonis secures the board on the putback for his 54th double-double in a row! 💪 pic.twitter.com/ZXgGEkj0Sj
— NBA TV (@NBATV) March 26, 2024
As impressive as Sabonis' record is, he's got a long way to go before he touches the pre-merger record. Between 1964 and 1967, Wilt Chamberlain earned double-doubles in 227 consecutive games. That puts Sabonis 173 double-doubles behind the Big Dipper. To reach him, Sabonis would need to put up a double-double in all 11 of Sacramento's remaining regular-season games as well as basically every game for the next two seasons.
Still, even if Sabonis can't catch Chamberlain this season, he does have more history in front of him. At his current pace, Sabonis is a near-lock to break the record for most double-doubles in a single, post-merger season. That record is currently held by Hakeem Olajuwon, who put up 72 of them in the 1992-93 season. Sabonis now has 67 with 11 games to play, giving him a chance to reach 78. If he does so, that is a record that will likely stand for years to come. In the modern NBA, most players don't even play in 78 games, much less post double-doubles in all of them.
Sabonis won't break the triple-doubles record this season, but he's pretty high on that list as well. With 25 of them so far this season, he is already tied for ninth in history. Russell Westbrook's record of 42 appears as daunting on paper as Chamberlain's 227-game double-double streak, but even reaching the top 10 as a center is a remarkable achievement. He, Chamberlain and Nikola Jokic are the only players to do so.
Even in an era in which statistical records are broken more frequently than ever, what Sabonis is doing now stands out. Consistency is a rarity in the load-management era. What Sabonis does every single night is arguably the biggest reason for Sacramento's success since acquiring him. Now, he has the record to prove it.
