Statistical proof of LeBron’s HORRIFIC defense

[Cafu]

When he was called out on nation media then he has tightened his defense alots.
Especially rotating to contest shooters.
Even before that he was not that bad so yeah, the stats are valid IMO.

[whitehops]

the problem with the eye test when it comes to defense is that you can't hear what the players are saying, and communication is the most important part of team defense.

lebron is probably the smartest defender and one of the best communicators in the league, so while it might look like he's just floating around off-ball, he's usually hedging on weak side action and calling out what he sees/rotations on strong side action.

[Shackattack]

He was a pretty good for a long time. Not sure what happened.

[JoseRizal]

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.

It’s opinion. And while mine may differ from yours and all 3 categories may intertwine, effort would still get the highest percentage.

Jimmy Butler doesn’t have the long arms of Leonard & George but he’s a great defender. Even Redick who has T-rex arms is a good team defender. Without the much needed effort, they will always be at a disadvantage.

LeBron has the advantage of having the right skills and physical attributes that makes him a great defender, but his recent lack of effort really makes a negative dent in his rep. Let’s see if he’ll able to revive his interest once he gets more competent teammates in the offseason...

[stillgotgame]

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

It will take more than one person.
Not 2, not 3...not 4, not 5..not 6, not 7

LeBron wants to talk the talk, he needs to walk the walk.

Watch his lazy butt getting back on D this year, pouting.

[homecourtloss]

As of this morning, March 25th,

https://stats.nba.com/players/ball-handler/

LeBron, 2019 I’m sure there are others, but LeBron’s the only one not in the bottom half of any of these play types per NBA.com. Even 2016 Kawhi and Dray, 2018 Roberson and RoCo had bottom 50%stats in certain play types. Giannis, Kawhi, and PG13 all Have bottom 50% stats.

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)

PG13

Top 12% in defending the pick and roll ball handler
Top 23% in defending hand offs
Bottom 16% in defending the roll man in pick and roll
Bottom 27% in defending off of screens
Top 13% in defending in ISO
Top 5% in post up defense
Top 19% in spot up defense

Kawhi

Top 32% in defending the pick and roll ball handler
Top 5% in defending hand offs
NO DATA (didn’t defend at least 10times) in defending the roll man in pick and roll
Bottom 34% in defending off of screens
Top 5% in defending in ISO
Bottom 44 in post up defense
Top 24% in spot up defense

Giannis

Top 30% in defending the pick and roll ball handler
Top 44% in defending hand offs
Top 44% in defending the roll man in pick and roll
Bottom 32% in defending off of screens
Top 17% in defending in ISO
Top 7% in post up defense
Top 23% in spot up defense

KD

Bottom 27% in defending the pick and roll ball handler
Top 41% in defending hand offs
Bottom 10% in defending the roll man in pick and roll
Bottom 32% in defending off of screens
Top 18% in defending in ISO
Top 30% in post up defense
Bottom 34% in spot up defense

Draymond

Bottom 33% in defending the pick and roll ball handler
Top 29% in defending hand offs
Top 25% in defending the roll man in pick and roll
Top 15% in defending off of screens
Top 52% in defending in ISO
Top 17% in post up defense
Bottom 38% in spot up defense

Siakam

Top 34% in defending the pick and roll ball handler
Top 15% in defending hand offs
Top 10% in defending the roll man in pick and roll
Bottom 35% in defending off of screens
Top 30% in defending in ISO
Top 19% in post up defense
Top 16% in spot up defense

For comparison

Kawhi, 2016

Top 10% in defending the pick and roll ball handler
Top 22% in defending hand offs
Top 2% in defending the roll man in pick and roll
Bottom 31% in defending off of screens
Top 17% in defending in ISO
Top 29% in post up defense
Top 25% in spot up defense

Draymond, 2016

Top 29% in defending the pick and roll ball handler
Bottom 43% in defending hand offs
Top 25% in defending the roll man in pick and roll
Top 2% in defending off of screens
Top 15% in defending in ISO
Top 11% in post up defense
Top 34% in spot up defense

LeBron, 2016

Top 12% in defending the pick and roll ball handler
Top 3% in defending hand offs
Top 16% in defending the roll man in pick and roll
Top 15% in defending off of screens
Top 7% in defending in ISO
Top 27% in post up defense
Top 13% in spot up defense

Roberson, 2018

Top 42% in defending the pick and roll ball handler
Top 17% in defending hand offs
Bottom 46% in defending the roll man in pick and roll
Top 27% in defending off of screens
Top 34% in defending in ISO
Top 16% in post up defense
Top 17% in spot up defense

RoCo, 2018

Bottom 49% in defending the pick and roll ball handler
Top 34% in defending hand offs
Bottom 13% in defending the roll man in pick and roll
Bottom 42% in defending off of screens
Top 18% in defending in ISO
Bottom 14% in post up defense
Top 44% in spot up defense

[homecourtloss]

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

It will take more than one person.
Not 2, not 3...not 4, not 5..not 6, not 7

LeBron wants to talk the talk, he needs to walk the walk.

Watch his lazy butt getting back on D this year, pouting.

Did you even read the OP?

[homecourtloss]

He was a pretty good for a long time. Not sure what happened.

He’s had a very good year defensively. Read the OP.

[homecourtloss]

When he was called out on nation media then he has tightened his defense alots.
Especially rotating to contest shooters.
Even before that he was not that bad so yeah, the stats are valid IMO.

Actually, he was best defensively in December before he got injured and before he was called out (unless you’re referring to a call-out before that).

https://stats.nba.com/player/2544/defense-dash/?Season=2018-19&SeasonType=Regular%20Season&Month=3

Opponents shot 36.3% against him in December.

[leolozon]

Good post, but you won't convinced biased people. Biased people think that their eyes are the best metric known to men. They don't know that human beings have a tendency to see what they want to see.

[BloodNinja]

LeBron has been a trash defender for a while now.

[ken6199]

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.

Can't be more true.

Sometimes a defender slides in to help his teammates who just lost his position, but he gets a block and looks stupid for being a half second late, but only the true fans will look at this and think, wow dude has great instinct in help defense, even after his teammate who is supposed to be a good lock-down defender who happens to unexpectedly get blown by.

Eye test depends on the eye, thank you, I will steal that line for future use. Should be handy when someone tells me to "don't look at the boxscore, watch the game"

[Q C]

the proof is in the pudding as they say

[marthafokker]

Guess stats helped Hilary. Oh right, Russian trolls. Those same Russian Trolls going after Bre Larson.

[OdomFan]

yawn. get him off the lakers already.

[thebigbird]

The replies are about what I expected. The haters want us to believe that their biased eyes are more reliable than literally every single defensive statistic out there. More than one thing can be true. It can be true that LeBron both 1) has declined on defense and 2) is still an above average defender.

[niQ]

Read on Twitter

[magicman1978]

[tweet][/tweet]

Lakers were playing zone defense, but Kuzma forgot. Thats not on LeBron

[HollowEarth]

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.

The criticism for me, based on the eye test, is that Lebron isn't giving the effort on help defense. The lowlight clips of Lebron are usually of him failing to rotate.

The stats show that Lebron is still playing his man well. Lebron is not a bad defender that can be isolated and exposed like IT. He's not even a weak link defender like Curry.

The stats don't touch on Lebron's help defense. That's where he's slipped, especially since his injury.

[VanWest82]

...

Here's the problem: because Lebron is basically a DH at this stage, and frequently plays a kind of hybrid one man zone to rest, it forces his teammates to have to cover a bunch of ground around him. The end result is that he doesn't have to expend as much energy defensively. His individual defensive numbers still look good though because he's a good defender when someone challenges his space on the court. He just isn't providing any help defense.

This is exactly what happened last year in Cleveland, only the Lakers have younger, livelier legs and better defenders in general so they've been better able to cover for DH Lebron. Some nights he still brings it though, and he's still one of the smartest defenders in the NBA which goes a long way. Your stats don't begin to tell the whole story though