[image: AP/Yahoo!]
Last night against the Chicago Bulls, JaVale McGee pulled off a remarkable feat: he swatted 12 shots. Along the way, he also pulled in 12 rebounds and scored 11 points, giving him that elusive triple double.
Since 1986 (when these records are available), only two players have recorded a points-rebounds-blocks triple double at a younger age: Shaquille O’Neal and Dwight Howard. So McGee is certainly in good company. In fact, this is the quite short list of players that have achieved that feat (alphabetically):
- Benoit Benjamin (1)
- Manute Bol (1)
- Shawn Bradley (6)
- Marcus Camby (3)
- Mark Eaton (1)
- Dwight Howard (1)
- Andrei Kirilenko (1)
- JaVale McGee (1)
- Dikembe Mutombo (10)
- Larry Nance (1)
- Jermaine O’Neal (1)
- Shaquille O’Neal (1)
- Hakeem Olajuwon (9)
- David Robinson (9)
- Ben Wallace (2)
It goes without saying that McGee has pulled off a statistical line that few can. However the way in which he achieved it was somewhat contrived. As the game wore on and it became apparent that he only needed to score a few more points to get into double-digit territory, McGee started pushing for baskets, forcing shots and clearly was aided by teammates who endeavoured to get him the ball in scoring position.
Now, bear in mind, this was a game that the Washington Wizards were losing by 20 points. Yet when McGee finally dunked the ball to exceed the 10-point mark in the final 30 seconds, he roared, hung from the rim and even received a technical foul for his remonstrations. I had hoped that the Wizards had started to gain some maturity with the departure of Gilbert Arenas and the realisation that they need to think about winning and not personal accolades, but obviously not. Any coach worth his salt should be pulling up his player for these sort of non-team-centric antics.
Irrespective, congratulations to McGee for pulling off 12 blocks and a triple double that has only been achieved on eight occasions. Watch video of McGee’s trip-dub:
http://youtube.com/watch?v=6F4PvLDfrTo
