Where does 2018 bron rank for his best seasons

[MyUniBroDavis]

I’m procrastinating because I don’t want to do work right now so I rambled a bit about 2018 bron lol

2018 Lebrons ECF run

Ive said before I thought 2018 Lebron was peak bron in the peaks project, but it’s always been one of those points where it “felt” like it but there was some data that made a lot of people discount it (playoff impact data essentially)

Of course, impact data for a playoff run is stupid noisy but I’ve never looked into it much, I’ve always taken the stance that it was the “him” run even though he probably sucked on defense because of the effort, but I saw a tiktok clip of Myles Turner talkin about how he was calling out every play they ran and clamping it down and wondering how valid that actually was.

Overall, I obviously I haven’t rewatched it but I honestly doubt his defense was nearly that bad anymore.


I don’t know if this is an accurate view, but when evaluating 2018 lebron it feels like a lot of people look at the impact signals of that run, and with a RS where defensively he was extremely poor throughout, end up thinking it was overrated because it was a top tier offensive run but the defense was bottom caliber.

He wasn’t groundbreaking but I can’t help think that during that ECF run it was a bit overblown


Overall data:
I’m doing ECF, because obviously vs the warriors JR smith pissed bron off so much he broke his wrist or something and he basically LeGaveUp after that, which isn’t too suprising lol. It’s one of those things where people do hold it against him but I’m of the opinion that no one in nba history gets them near the finals anyway so I don’t really care lol.

Overall, Lebrons ECF numbers:
34/9.2/8.8/1.4/1.1 and 4.1 turnovers per game, TS of 61.9
Assist ratio of 47.3%, 23.2 points from assists per game, 19.0 potential assists per game, 1.3 secondary assists per game.
League average TS was 55.6, so +6.3TS

It should be noted, Cleveland played at a pace of 90.8, same as the 06 Lakers.

Now the stat lines are obviously crazy considering this was 2018, but let’s put it in more perspective

Cleveland shot 13.1 wide open threes (17%), 11.9 open threes (15.4%), 4.6 right threes (6.0%) and 0.2 tightly contest threes (0.2%)

So 83.9% of their threes were open or wide open, 44% wide open

So he alone was accounting for about 57.2 points per game, considering he played 41 minutes a game that comes out to about 60-65% if his teams points coming directly from his contribution while he was out on the floor

So the numbers counting stats and effeciency are quite good, but I think it’s a question of whether or not the impact or what not matched the data.

2018 lebron essentially brought a historically bad offensive team to the nba finals. It’s a mildly controversial statement, but let’s think about what the roster was and how they performed.

When you think of one man offenses, they’re usually designed by having play finishers that can efficiently score from spacing + having another guy or a few people that can share ball handling duties

We’ve basically seen the 2016 and especially 2017 cavs teams like this although they didn’t run a one man offense like the mavs or the rockets do obviously, and we saw some absurd results there.

You can put the 2018 cavs similarly in terms of roles, but the difference was for the majority of the 2018 run they were absolutely ass at it lol

Obviously, you want guys who can make catch and shoot threes on a Lebron team, here’s how Non-Lebron players on the cavs shot from three in the 3 series

Vs Indiana - 31.6%
Vs Toronto - 45.7%
Vs Boston - 29.6%

In terms of other players who weren’t only finishers, you had
George hill/clarkson/hood/love

Hood and clarkson weren’t exactly great, love was shooting 39.7% on post ups, hill was okay but very much graded out as a average ball handler who wasn’t able to shoot

To an extent, their dominance over Toronto masked how poorly that cast performed vs Boston and vs Indiana.



In wins

One of the more interesting things was how utterly reliant the team was on Bron in wins and how absurdly well he performed in them.

In wins, these were lebrons numbers during the ECF run. (Well, in the entire run actually lol)

37.9/9.3/8.8/1.8/1.0 and 3.5 turnovers a game, 64.6TS and 8.5TO%

For comparison, last 3 FMVP
here’s Jokic’s data in wins this run
27.1/14.1/9.1 3.1 turnovers, 61.1TS 8.8TO%

Here’s Currys data in wins in the 2022 run
27.7/5.4/5.9 2.6 turnovers 61.1TS 8.4TO%

Here’s giannis’s data in wins in the 2021 run
31.3/13.3/5.4 2.9TO 58.4TS 8.4TO%

Here’s Kawhi’s data in wins in the 2021 run
30.5/9.1/4.0 2.8TO 62.9TS 9.1TO%

Just to kind of show exactly how much juice/how reliant they were on bron to get them wins.

To an extent it’s also that bron sells in game 1, and while I get why people might heavily criticize that, a 7 game series isn’t an independent set of 7 games as much as it’s 7 games built upon one another. Beyond that him selling is essentially a line of like 25-10-10 on middling effeciency or something usually anyway.


In terms of getting his data in wins, in general it’s just to show how important his contributions obviously were and the level he had to play at to actually secure wins. Of course you shouldn’t throw out your performance in losses

(He still averaged 26-9-9 on 58.2TS in losses, of course in a 10 game sample that Boston game 1 brings it down multiple percentage points in that regard, 13.2TO%)


to win games, bron needed to essentially average a 40 point triple double on 2017 playoff Curry like effeciency and low turnovers

^ it’s mildly an exaggeration, but 38-9-9 on +9.0TS is a pretty ridiculous bar. Average are somewhat worse than they actually were because of game 1 vs Cleveland where he hit a game winner but didn’t shoot too efficiently (26-11-13 with 1 turnover though). He’s at +11.5TS if you take that game out.

This wasn’t the same type of, super spaced out bron get right to the rim either, he shot more midrange jump shots this run than he did since he left Miami, teams started leaving guys pretty open since they didn’t punish them.

%RTS is a role based thing, it’s comparing you’re situation and assuming it’s an average situation, a slasher with bad spacing forced to drop 40 a game if he wants to win isn’t really an average situation. It also can’t be compared to a guy like Curry whose going to take some catch and shoot threes within the offense or even a Jokic whose gonna get a lot more shots rolling or popping.

Even more than that, they weren’t doing much in transition, Cleveland had the fourth lowest transition frequency in the playoffs, (2 below lost in the first round), a drop off from 4th in the RS to a mark that would be 21st in the RS.

Lebron still had a decent amount of transition possessions, but it was more from being one of the clear highest volume guys to being about the same volume as Curry and durant. In terms of frequency as a percentage of plays, it was far less than them actually.

So when you think of bron, basically everything that made him bron was limited. Because of the unprecedented load he had to carry + having to slow the game down a bit the transition game wasn’t there nearly as much, the spacing was dead, and there weren’t other ball handlers to share the load offensively, and finally the shooting around him was absolutely dead outside of a Toronto series (which they won in an upset sweep).

24.0% of his plays in the 2017 playoffs were in transition, in 2016 it was 19.8%, in 2018 it was 14.9%, less than the average nba player that season.

None of this is new, but it’s nice to reiterate how ridiculously impressive his volume and effeciency was on an ill constructed team (at least at the time when they all suddenly started sucking), and that he basically needed to average GOAT level numbers to actually win games. Lue was good tho, which does help a bit lol.


Clutch data
Bron went 7-3 in clutch games during his east run, scoring 4.7 in those 5 minutes with a 62.7TS, obviously 2 game winners.

I actually am not sure it it’s 7-3, I could only find one clutch loss in the EC, so nba.com might be a bit weird with their tracking there

Something to note in going through some of the games individually, we see sometimes starts pad their stats when games are virtually over, the cavs only had 4 games where entering the fourth quarter there was a deficit or advantage of 14 or more points (just to get a Boston game in) and he was 3/11 overall in these 4 quarters


Impact data

I think playoff impact data is kind of jank, but when looking at brons I don’t really see a conclusion where h was really poor defensively as much

I also do think I’ve seen people call his 2018 run overrated on the basis that the impact data over this stretch wasn’t that good, I think it’s a bit silly but it’s worth taking a better look into

Now lebrons overall ECF impact data isn’t all too impressive, his net rtg is +10.1, +18.8 on offense and -8.7 on defense, which does fit the narrative.

But like, pretty substantial portion of this is just because of the effect of one game lol. In game 1 vs Boston, they were -32 when bron was on the court and +7 in garbage time


Taking out that one blowout, his on/off jumps to roughly, +17.4, +21.4 on offense and -4 on defense, but even that’s a bit misleading honestly


The cavs defense with bron on the court was really only bad vs the raptors, in every other series it was pretty darn good, but an outlier game would make the averages not look as good.

Vs the pacers, the defense with bron on the court was 108.5, but that’s skewed more than what it was in reality because of a game 6 blowout. Over the first 5 games, the defensive rtg when lebron was on the court was 102.5, in game 7 it was 118.5

^ technically this series his on-off on defense was positive but again it’s like garbage time and like a few minutes per game lol.

Vs the raptors, the defense wasn’t
good with him on the court, but also it was literally a sweep and the cavs offensive rtg with bron on the court was 132.2 lol.


Vs the Celtics
^ the defensive rtg was fine, at 106.3, with lebron on the court, but again it’s mostly from game 1, take that out and it drops to 102.5

In both of the above cases what mainly happened was no one could score on either team during garbage time, which is what tanked lebrons defensive raw impact metrics, at the same time, I don’t think it makes sense to say

“Well the defense was good with bron on the court but because no one could score in garbage time he must have been unplayable defensively”

It’s just a bit of a silly argument to make I think, and I doubt anyone is looking into brons defense against the raptors up 20 as he’s hitting trick shot fadeaways lol.

Now I wouldn’t say anything like “oh Lebron anchored this defense to be a -4 relative defense when he’s on the court” or some dumb BS like that, I think relative ratings are stupid in general because matchups are a thing, but at the same time this is literally a bottom tier defense (partially because RS bron be asleep of course) and they were pretty solid defensively in the series where they had to actually play defense when bron was on the court, I doubt bron was this unplayable force on defense because they had a 95 defensive rtg in the minutes he was off the court that was more than 50% garbage time

The thing is when bron messes up on defense for being lazy it looks heinous lol

Defensively while it’s nothing like his 2016 run or anything, I doubt it was this defensive disaster like a lot of people seem to think, I certainly didn’t ever think “darn bron should dial it back on offense and do more on defense”

In any case we saw for like 6 years in a row his defensive impact skyrocket the moment playoffs hit, as iq and communication became more important, and we have Myles Turner talking about him going big brain mode hat series and calling out every play, and a cavs roster go from a 29th defense to overall having a good defensive ECF run, and be a genuinely good defense overall with bron on the court

There were certainly more miscues and lazy moments than his previous runs, but I doubt it was nearly as bad as people were saying


Offensively is where the argument is more, and quite simply Lebron brought a Gleague level offense that didn’t fit around him to the finals.

That sounds like an exaggeration, but it really isn’t lol. It’s not that all those players completely suck, it’s that a chunk of them suddenly decided to suck during the playoffs


As I said before, it’s a team of play finishers, the guys that could create offense without bron, love/clarkson/hill/hood, all were very poor at that in the playoffs

Love was horrendous posting up that postseason, clarkson was horrible and TS of 35.8% and couldn’t create anything, hood had a few decent games but more often made 1 shot or less throughout that run, and hill was okay but couldn’t really shoot either that run.

The worst shooting team in the nba that year shot about 33.4 from three that year, the Suns with an offensive rtg of 103.5

What the cavs shot outside of lebron per series

Vs Pacers 31.6%
Vs raptors 47.8%
Vs Boston 29.6%
Vs warriors lol 28.8%

Not counting bron:
Vs the pacers, 2 players shot above 32%, Klove (14/35) and korver (16/40)

Vs Boston, 2 players shot above 32%, korver (14/33) and clarkson (6/18)

So essentially, no one else outside of bron could create their offense whatsoever outside of George hill who did so at an average backup guard level who was in a cold streak from three, and their three point shooting

The only team to shoot worse than them from three outside of that raptors series, in the last 13 years, are the 2012 bobcats, literally the worst team in the history of the nba before the three point revolution.

Even these numbers somewhat overshoot how poorly they shot, vs Boston they shot above 30% from three twice for example.

More than that, as I mentioned before a solid amount of their shots were open or wide open

When you look at games they lost, bron essentially performed at a fringe MVP level offensively, averaging a relatively efficient 26-9-9, about in line with his 2016 RS numbers.

They had a 92.7 offensive rtg in losses, and a 117.1 offensive rtg in wins

Of course, it’s normal to have a lower offensive rating in losses, but this is to really hammer home how absurdly reliant they were on Bron. If he produced at a fringe MVP level, they were a worse offense in nba history type of offense, essentially.

You can’t only measure an offense by how they perform when ur on or off the court, you also have to think about how easy or how difficult it is to Elevate that offense. When it came to some early cavs bron offenses it was the sum are greater than their parts, that’s generally what it comes down to with a lot of offenses around playmakers in general actually.

Now when you think of the 2018 cavs team in their playoff form, the issue is there really isn’t anything you can do lol.

They can’t shoot
Their best finishers/cutters are nance who is solid and Tristan Thompson
Their best playmaker is George hill
Their best second option on offense is a a Klove who is shooting under 40% in the post

This isn’t really a situation you can put a transcendent playmaker in and expect anything to happen, like a Curry or a Magic isn’t gonna do much with this roster for example

The raptors series they shot like normal and bron maintained this level of play, and the offense was predictably absurd, but outside of that, and essentially one game vs Boston they shot really well from three, bron basically needed to be an elite playmaker while simultaneously scoring at an absurd historic rate for the offense to stay afloat

Outside of that Boston game, they shot 32.7% outside of bron from three… in wins lol

For comparison, the lowest in the RS was 36.9%, and the lowest I found in the last 10 years were the 2012 kings at 32.5% which are somewhat of an outlier even in those years.

Now, of course I am comparing a subset of results, and comparing it to whole regular seasons, but I think it’s fair, these were the two competetive series, and it’s literally 7/8 wins because they shot the absolute lights out in one blowout win bron got to chill for a sec

So what did bron average in these 7 games?
41.7/10.5/6.9 on 66.9TS, 4.4 turnovers a game

Assist numbers are low because of a 3 assist game vs Boston (where he scored 44 points on 65.2TS%)

Not as if both defenses were weak either, the Celtics were the #1 defense and the pacers were 13th trended upwards, post new year they were 7th and lost all star break they were 5th

Offensively, I don’t think it is really feasible to lift that team much given how they performed outside of something ridiculous like this. We tend to sort offensive players in tiers, but I don’t see how, for example, a Curry/nash/magic would do much with this roster, I don’t watch enough magic to know to be fair, but Tristan Thompson and a Klove who can’t shoot + poor spacing isn’t the right setup for a less volume scoring focused pick and roll offense, and it’s not as if a 4 on 3 with that roster is gonna be any threat at all when it comes to Curry

Technically speaking 2018 lebron isn’t inherently different from 2017 lebron outside of a different situation of course, but 2018 bron is the most impressive run

Id say 2018 bron was able to muster up enough performances throughout that ECF run that he brought what is essentially a worst in the nba level team performance wise (given they were a poor defense with no shooting essentially) to being an NBA finals team. More than anything I feel sometimes people consider basketball seasons as a choice of probabilities rather than something concrete and set in stone, regardless of whether or not you agree with the game 1 scouting giveaways, it’s worked and therefore you can’t really hold that against him imo.

Obviously, the finals he messed up his hand and JR probably killed him inside, but I feel his 2018 season gets overlooked here, it was kind of insane. When we’re talking about poor offensive talent, this kind of takes the cake given how they played that run, and it’s not like they were great defensively either. The fact that to have a competent offense he had to consistently drop 40+ ppg on 2016 Curry like effeciency and he was able to do so as much as he did is kind of insane, and I doubt his defense was nearly as bad as some make it out to be either, in the sense that if you replace him with a league average player they get significantly better in the playoffs on defense. In all honesty without that BBIQ and gameplanning, they probably get significantly worse.


As for the finals and if that brings it down, I honestly don’t think any other player in nba history brings them to the finals so I don’t care all too much lol, also those are some crazy circumstances

[wafflzgod]

Think 2009, 2010, 2012, 2013, 2014, 2016, and 2017 LeBron are all better

[Ben AN]

2nd behind 17 LeBron, but it's pretty close between that season and 09/12/16.

[Ben AN]

Think 2009, 2010, 2012, 2013, 2014, 2016, and 2017 LeBron are all better

Why 14 LeBron>18 LeBron? Both are known as defensive down years and arguably his 2 best scoring seasons, yet in those aspects 18 LeBron appears to be better (especially in the postseason). LeBron in 2014 was more prone to off scoring nights in the postseason, especially in the finals where outside of garbage time he struggled.
Per NBA.com, defended field goal attempts & opponent fg% difference compared to vs league average defender:
14 RS|9.5 -1.5
14 PS|7.6 +3.3
18 RS|11.9 -.8
18 PS|12.2 -2.2

[Joao Saraiva]

Difficult to evaluate. I still like the ultra fast 1st step LeBron of 09 above anything else. Dude was such a dominant presence.

But I'm vey impressed with 18 too.

[Djoker]

He was really bad on defense and bled a lot of value on that end of the floor. Then again his offense was among the most impressive of his career.

I think only 2009, 2012 and 2016 are clearly ahead.

But then again, it's easier to put up stats in recent years. Luka's 2022 run isn't that far behind 2018 Lebron.