Quadruple-Double in the NBA (All Four Ever)

Only four players have recorded an official quadruple-double in NBA history: Nate Thurmond, Alvin Robertson, Hakeem Olajuwon and David Robinson. A quadruple-double means reaching double figures in four of the five main statistical categories in a single game, and none has been achieved since 1994.

That makes it one of the rarest lines in the sport — rarer than a 70-point game, and far rarer than a triple-double. Below are all four, what actually counts, and why the feat has gone more than three decades without a fifth entry.

Every NBA quadruple-double

Here are the four official quadruple-doubles, with the full stat line for each.

Three of the four came from centers, and the fourth, Alvin Robertson, was a guard whose double-double in steals is the only one on the list. Two of the four were achieved by San Antonio Spurs players.

What counts as a quadruple-double

The five main categories are points, rebounds, assists, steals and blocks. A quadruple-double requires ten or more in four of them. In practice that almost always means a player pairs scoring, rebounding and passing with a big night of blocks — as Thurmond, Olajuwon and Robinson did — or, in Robertson’s unique case, steals.

The distinction from a triple-double matters. Triple-doubles happen dozens of times a season now; the quadruple-double demands one extra elite category on top, and that fourth line is nearly always the defensive one that is hardest to reach in double figures.

Why it is so rare

Blocking or stealing ten times in a game is the bottleneck. A player can score, rebound and pass at a high level and still finish with six or seven blocks. Getting to ten in a defensive category while also carrying the other three is a specific, unusual night.

There is also a data reason the list starts in 1974. The NBA did not officially record blocks and steals until the 1973-74 season. Centers like Wilt Chamberlain and Bill Russell dominated earlier eras and may well have posted quadruple-doubles, but without certified block and steal totals those games cannot be confirmed, so the record book begins with Thurmond. For where these same names rank on defense over a career, see our list of the most blocks in NBA history.

The near-misses

Plenty of players have brushed against it. Triple-doubles with eight or nine blocks or steals turn up most seasons, and the modern game’s pace produces more of them than ever. What it does not produce is the completed set.

Robinson’s 1994 line — done, pointedly, on a night he was chasing the scoring title — remains the most recent. More than 30 years later, the game has grown faster and the stat-tracking sharper, yet no one has matched it. The quadruple-double sits as a four-name club that has not admitted a new member since the year the NBA had 27 teams.

If you want to test how well you know the game’s rarest lines, try Guess the NBA Player, or read up on the more common but still-impressive triple-double, explained. Four quadruple-doubles in over 50 years of tracked stats — the fifth is long overdue.