Statistical proof of LeBron’s HORRIFIC defense

[homecourtloss]

Oh, wait. When looking at all the data available, the exact opposite is true. NBA.com has play type data available again and guess what? It shows that not only is James not a bad defender, but he’s rather a very good one.

Top 6% in defending the pick and roll ball handler
Top 10% in defending hand offs
Top 14% in defending the roll man in pick and roll
Top 20% in defending off of screens
Top 27% in defending in ISO
Top 30% in post up defense
Top 43% in spot up defense (only defense he was average in)

Additionally, opponents whom James defends shoot 3.8% WORSE when defended by James. https://stats.nba.com/player/2544/defense-dash/

In December, they shot a whopping 9.8% WORSE.
https://stats.nba.com/player/2544/defense-dash/?Season=2018-19&SeasonType=Regular%20Season&Month=3

—Lakers are 3.1 points per 100 possession BETTER defensively with James on court.
With James ON court, the Lakers’ defense is equivalent to the 10th ranked defense.
With James OFF court, the Lakers’ defense is equivalent to the 23rd ranked defense

https://www.basketball-reference.com/players/j/jamesle01/on-off/2019

—James’ DRPM is 1.74, top 10% in the NBA. His DRPM is ahead of players such as Smart, Winslow, Butler, Ball, Dipo, Lowry, Kidd-Gilchrist, Tatum and Brown, KD, Simmons, LMA, [REST ARE ALL NEGATIVE DEFENDERS PER DRPM—Like James was last year]: Kawhi, Brogdon, Ingram, SGA

PICK AND ROLL BALL HANDLER (2+ defensive possessions per game, 50+ games played

James is 2nd best out of 141 players, top 6%, who defend 2+ such possessions per game.

https://stats.nba.com/players/ball-handler/#!?sort=PPP&dir=-1&SeasonType=Regular%20Season&TypeGrouping=defensive&CF=GP*GE*50:POSS*GE*2

HAND OFF DEFENSE (.5+ defensive possession per game, 50+ games played.)

James is 5th out of 140 players in defending hand offs, top 10%.

https://stats.nba.com/players/hand-off/?SeasonType=Regular%20Season&TypeGrouping=defensive&sort=PPP&dir=-1&CF=POSS*GE*.5:GP*GE*5

ISO DEFENSE (1+ defensive possession per game, 50+ games played.)

James is 15th of 61 players, top 27% in points per possession allowed (.78)
ahead of Siakam, Draymond, Simmons, Klay, Aminu. For reference, Giannis allows .72 PPP.

https://stats.nba.com/players/isolation/?sort=PPP&dir=-1&SeasonType=Regular%20Season&TypeGrouping=defensive&CF=POSS*GE*1:GP*GE*50

SPOT UP DEFENSE (3+ defensive possession per game, 50+ games played.)

James is 35th of 94 players, top 43% in PPP allowed, ahead of Embiid, Brown, Lowry, Draymond, KD, Danny Green,

https://stats.nba.com/players/spot-up/?SeasonType=Regular%20Season&TypeGrouping=defensive&sort=PPP&dir=-1&CF=GP*GE*50:POSS*GE*3

ROLL MAN DEFENSE IN PICK AND ROLL (only .2 possessions per game)


Top 14% in the league

https://stats.nba.com/players/roll-man/?sort=PPP&dir=-1&SeasonType=Regular%20Season&TypeGrouping=defensive&CF=GP*GE*50:POSS*GE*.

DEFENSE OFF SCREENS (.4+possessions per game)

James is 18th out of 163 players, top 20% in the NBA.

https://stats.nba.com/players/off-screen/?SeasonType=Regular%20Season&TypeGrouping=defensive&sort=TEAM_ABBREVIATION&dir=-1

POST UP DEFENSE (.5+ possessions per game, 50+ games played)

James is 49th of 176 players, top 30%

https://stats.nba.com/players/playtype-post-up/?SeasonType=Regular%20Season&TypeGrouping=defensive&sort=PPP&dir=-1&CF=POSS*GE*.5:GP*GE*5

[alessandrux]

Not going to argue that he is a horrific defender (or not), but that is not a proof.

It does not include if Lebron avoids difficult situations to the detriment of his teams defensive success and just (cherry) picks easy situations where he wants to defend(who produce a good statistical output).

[LAL]

Those metrics are invalid. Sure he’s still good when he actually guards someone, but he is only actually guarding someone about 1/5 possessions, and all the stats you cherry picked don’t account for that.

[Ben Simmons]

Statistics should be banned from the NBA

[JoseRizal]

He doesn’t pass the eye test. Almost Shaqtin’ a fool-James Harden a few years ago level...

[The High Cyde]

Those metrics are invalid.

Good lord man

[RCM88x]

He doesn’t pass the eye test. Almost Shaqtin’ a fool-James Harden a few years ago level...

Considering the eye test is literally 100% invalid when it comes to defense I don't think this really matters.

The only thing that matters on the defensive end is how often a team scores.

[Dupp]

I like that the only way to get people to enter this thread is to pretend it’s a negative lebron thread.

[NyKnicks1714]

He doesn’t pass the eye test.

This is not enough though. Sure the "eye test" is important, but if someone makes a claim and backs it up with substantial statistical evidence, you have to counter with more than citing the "eye test". And guess what, if something is actually true based on the "eye test", there will be statistics out there to corroborate it.

[Dupp]

He doesn’t pass the eye test. Almost Shaqtin’ a fool-James Harden a few years ago level...

Considering the eye test is literally 100% invalid when it comes to defense I don't think this really matters.

The only thing that matters on the defensive end is how often a team scores.

I think eye test matters more on defense than offence. The problem is too many people have agendas with lebron to trust their “ eye test”

lebron also has a lot of James harden type lowlight defensive plays that kind of stick in people’s head.


Still he’s dropped off a lot since 2017 where he was still absolutely elite until the finals. But he’s certainly not as bad as people say.

[homecourtloss]

Those metrics are invalid. Sure he’s still good when he actually guards someone, but he is only actually guarding someone about 1/5 possessions, and all the stats you cherry picked don’t account for that.

Cherry picked? Those are literally ALL of the play types on NBA.com other than transition for which there aren’t defensive stats available. Go there and pick your own stats and see if you can create an argument for his bad defense.

He only defends someone on 1/5 of possessions?

Players whom James has defended overall season FG%: 46.5%.
FG% when defended by James: 42.7% (-3.8%, 10.1 FGAs defended per game)

Players whom George has defended overall season FG%: 45.7%
FG% when defended by George: 43.7% (-2.0%, 11.9 FGAs defended per game)

Players whom Kawhi has defended overall season FG%: 46.0%
FG% when defended by Kawhi: 45.1% (-.9%, 10.3 FGAs defended per game)

Players whom Butler has defended overall season FG%: 46.1%
FG% when defended by Butler: 47.0% (+.9%, 12.7 FGAs defended per game)

Players whom Durant has defended overall season FG%: 46.2%
FG% when defended by Durant: 40.9% (-5.3%, 11.4 FGAs defended per game)

Players whom Giannis has defended overall season FG%: 46.9%
FG% when defended by Giannis: 40.8% (-6.1% 11.2FGAs defended per game)

He defends about the same # of shots as Kawhi and slightly fewer than the others.

[RCM88x]

He doesn’t pass the eye test. Almost Shaqtin’ a fool-James Harden a few years ago level...

Considering the eye test is literally 100% invalid when it comes to defense I don't think this really matters.

The only thing that matters on the defensive end is how often a team scores.

I think eye test matters more on defense than offence. The problem is too many people have agendas with lebron to trust their “ eye test”

lebron also has a lot of James harden type lowlight defensive plays that kind of stick in people’s head.


Still he’s dropped off a lot since 2017 where he was still absolutely elite until the finals. But he’s certainly not as bad as people say.

More valid than not valid at all is still basically nothing.

To me, the only thing that matters when it comes to defense is how often the other team scores. Because that is literally all that matters.

What's even worse is people somehow validate their "eye test" on Twitter clips. Unless you watch every possession of a team or a player you're eye test has zero validity. I guarantee 99% of the people who cite their "eye test" as an argument spend about 8 seconds watching a player before making a judgement. So perhaps it's more of an issue with those people in general than the concept as a whole. However I still don't put any stock into such things.

[homecourtloss]

Not going to argue that he is a horrific defender (or not), but that is not a proof.

It does not include if Lebron avoids difficult situations to the detriment of his teams defensive success and just (cherry) picks easy situations where he wants to defend(who produce a good statistical output).

Then what’s proof?

—The Lakers are substantially better defensively with him on court.
—He’s top 10% in DRPM
—Opponents shoot substantially worse when defended by him
—He’s elite or above average in points per possession allowed in EVERY play type other than spot up defense in which he’s average/slightly above average

[Tracymcgoaty]

I wonder who'll take the HATE mantle once Lebron retires.

[homecourtloss]

He doesn’t pass the eye test.

This is not enough though. Sure the "eye test" is important, but if someone makes a claim and backs it up with substantial statistical evidence, you have to counter with more than citing the "eye test". And guess what, if something is actually true based on the "eye test", there will be statistics out there to corroborate it.

Exactly.

If every single one of these defensive statistics that cover every single play in the 53 games he’s played somehow don’t mean anything (“stats lie,” “doesn’t pass the eye test”) then we would see it.

The stats not only say that James isn’t a bad defender, but that he’s a good one.

If these stats don’t mean anything, then it should be easy to find a “bad defender in people’s minds” who also somehow randomly meets even two or three of these metrics.

We have 6 years worth of data (4 with playtype datasince NBA.com removed some of it)—find a player who you think is a bad defender who is at least +1 in DRPM and his team is 3 points per 100 possessions better defensively with him on court and opponents shoot 3%+ worse against him. Forget even the other things.

[zimpy27]

He doesn’t pass the eye test. Almost Shaqtin’ a fool-James Harden a few years ago level...

Considering the eye test is literally 100% invalid when it comes to defense I don't think this really matters.

The only thing that matters on the defensive end is how often a team scores.

I think eye test matters more on defense than offence. The problem is too many people have agendas with lebron to trust their “ eye test”

lebron also has a lot of James harden type lowlight defensive plays that kind of stick in people’s head.


Still he’s dropped off a lot since 2017 where he was still absolutely elite until the finals. But he’s certainly not as bad as people say.

The eye test depends on the eye, not even bias towards one player, it depends on how that person understands the game of basketball.

I think most people just follow the ball in basketball and the notice players that disrupt the flow of ball directly, largely on-ball defenders. I think stats do a lot better than the majority of eye tests when it comes to defense because at least the roughly capture disruptive off-ball defense and defensive quarterbacking.

[Heej]

The thing is here that most important people on this board haven't coached a team at any point, or probably weren't the high IQ guys on their HS bball team so the value of being a "yellow light" on help defense is underappreciated.

Bron might rest a crap load on defense, but he loafs around in the high leverage real estate areas on the court. Then when he closes out he still has that aura where shooters get shook even on a half hearted closeout. Also he's a plus defensive rebounder for his position which is inarguably the most important part of defense.

We go through this every year where people crap on LeBron and then Zach Lowe goes on a podcast after he talks to some league guys about their internal metrics and they all tell him "nope, he's still good"

Who cares though, people wanna follow whatever narrative they wish to follow.

[JoseRizal]

He doesn’t pass the eye test. Almost Shaqtin’ a fool-James Harden a few years ago level...

Considering the eye test is literally 100% invalid when it comes to defense I don't think this really matters.

The only thing that matters on the defensive end is how often a team scores.

Defense is 50% effort, 25% skill & 25% athleticism/physical attributes. The eye test definitely has limits, but it clearly exposes a player’s lackadaisical attitude towards certain possessions that cannot be validated by mere statistics.

LeBron used to be a great defender, but he definitely slowed down and it’s not due to physical limitations but with his lack of interest. He definitely checked out when he realized how difficult it is to rule the West.

Just my two cents...

[infinite11285]

Those metrics are invalid.

Good lord man

And just like that, “fake stats” was born.

[RCM88x]

He doesn’t pass the eye test. Almost Shaqtin’ a fool-James Harden a few years ago level...

Considering the eye test is literally 100% invalid when it comes to defense I don't think this really matters.

The only thing that matters on the defensive end is how often a team scores.

Defense is 50% effort, 25% skill & 25% athleticism/physical attributes. The eye test definitely has limits, but it clearly exposes a player’s lackadaisical attitude towards certain possessions that cannot be validated by mere statistics.

LeBron used to be a great defender, but he definitely slowed down and it’s not due to physical limitations but with his lack of interest. He definitely checked out when he realized how difficult it is to rule the West.

Just my two cents...

Where are you getting those numbers from?

And regardless, even if Lebron supposedly only gives "50%" effort on defense, he's still better than most NBA players and improves his team on that side of the ball.

Yeah I guess he's not as good as he used to be, but that is irrelevant because he's still pretty good on that end as basically every metric shows. He sure as hell is better than he was last year as far as I can tell, and last year he probably had one of the worst defensive supporting casts for a playoff team in NBA history.