By Stephen Brosnan
This season, Russell Westbrook has been a phenomenon, averaging a triple double for Oklahoma City Thunder (OKC). A triple double is achieved when a player ends up in double figures for points, assists and rebounds in a particular match. To put this achievement into context, Oscar Robinson (1961-62) is the only player in history to average a triple double for the entire season. However, Westbrook’s team OKC are struggling in the Western Conference placed 7th. Previously, David Butler and John Eakins discussed (here) whether Golden Boot winners in Europe’s top four soccer leagues played for eventual league champions from 1992-2013. They show that only 28% of top goal scorers in each of the domestic league competitions played for the eventual champions. I decided to analyse whether these results are persistent across other sports namely, basketball.
Table 1 shows the NBA Scoring Champions and NBA Champions between 1990 and 2016.
This season, Russell Westbrook has been a phenomenon, averaging a triple double for Oklahoma City Thunder (OKC). A triple double is achieved when a player ends up in double figures for points, assists and rebounds in a particular match. To put this achievement into context, Oscar Robinson (1961-62) is the only player in history to average a triple double for the entire season. However, Westbrook’s team OKC are struggling in the Western Conference placed 7th. Previously, David Butler and John Eakins discussed (here) whether Golden Boot winners in Europe’s top four soccer leagues played for eventual league champions from 1992-2013. They show that only 28% of top goal scorers in each of the domestic league competitions played for the eventual champions. I decided to analyse whether these results are persistent across other sports namely, basketball.
Table 1 shows the NBA Scoring Champions and NBA Champions between 1990 and 2016.
Table 1 shows that rarely does the NBA scorer play with the eventual champions. In the 26 seasons included in the table, only seven times has the NBA Scoring champion played for the eventual NBA Champions. Thus 26.9% of NBA Scoring Champions have played for the NBA Champions during the period. This figure is very close to the 28% found in Europe’s soccer leagues. However, when we analyse the basketball data it becomes clear that an outlier exists, namely, Michael Jordan. Six of the seven times the scoring champion has become an NBA Champion it has been Michael Jordan (Shaquille O'Neal being the other in 99-00 for the LA Lakers). Michael Jordan led the Chicago Bulls to their first Three-peat (3 back to back titles) between 1990 and 1993, subsequently retired for two years, only to come back and three-peat again.
Thus, the ‘Michael Jordan effect’ can be considered an exception rather than the rule. No player in the last 16 years has won both the NBA Scoring title and NBA Championship. So why is this the case? One possible explanation often used, with reference to Russell Westbrook, is that the reason a player becomes leading scorer in the league is that there teammates are not good enough so one player must take it upon himself to try and win games on his own. Whilst this approach most certainly boosts their own stats, once these teams reach the play-offs and come up against teams with more talent they will almost always be eliminated.
Thus, the ‘Michael Jordan effect’ can be considered an exception rather than the rule. No player in the last 16 years has won both the NBA Scoring title and NBA Championship. So why is this the case? One possible explanation often used, with reference to Russell Westbrook, is that the reason a player becomes leading scorer in the league is that there teammates are not good enough so one player must take it upon himself to try and win games on his own. Whilst this approach most certainly boosts their own stats, once these teams reach the play-offs and come up against teams with more talent they will almost always be eliminated.
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