No-more-rings wrote:I thought he had life easy with Lebron garnering more of the defensive attention. Not to discredit him, but it's nice to see people have a more realistic view of him 2 years later. At the time people we had a few people comparing his playoff run to guys like Tim Duncan and Hakeem.
f4p wrote:I still think he benefits too much from being next to Lebron to call it an all-time peak. Yes, AD actually has very impressive playoff numbers so it can't solely be attributed to Lebron, but AD's game (at least at that point) seems tailor made to benefit from Lebron. He's almost certainly the most perfect fit for Lebron that he's ever had. Lebron runs the show and gets everyone where they need to be, AD did a superb job hitting his jumpers (unsustainably, but he did it) and finishing from Lebron's attention and still got some of his own shots. And obviously, the Lakers played amazing defense with him probably being the biggest reason. So certainly an amazing playoff run but too conveniently next to Lebron for me to call it an all-time peak.
I really do wonder how many people actually watched the Lakers during the bubble vs just making the assumption that lebron playmaking + AD good off ball = perfect combination
Bubble AD and 2020 playoff Lebron fit well in the sense that they were an elite two way duo and the best players of the nba bubble.
How Lebron helped AD is basically off of drive and kicks, which I don’t see as anything crazy since spacing 5 gets three point opportunities, and that he and rondo could find AD when he was moving off ball.
That’s pretty much it.
I’ll write down factors going against them, but people REALLY overestimate the significance of the second part of that.
AD was assisted in 57.8% of his 2 point shots in the 2020 RS, the lowest of his career up until that point. For reference, the lowest before that was 61.8% of his 2 point shots assisted, and his more off ball season which was his peak RS impact over the whole year was 71.5%
In the playoffs, this number was 57.7%.
For reference, 2003 Duncan was assisted on 47.5% of his shots in the RS, 51.4% in the playoffs.
2004 KG at 66.3% in the RS, 54% in the playoffs
2011 Dirk at 59% in the RS, 48.5% in the playoffs
2000 Shaq at 60.1% in the RS and 62.8% in the playoffs
In terms of high leverage opportunities, he averaged 2.2 cut scoring possessions a game, and 2.2 roll man possessions a game (9.6% of his possessions for both).
For reference, 12% of Duncan’s were roll man possessions in 07 (data goes from 05 onwards) and 8.6% were cuts
People assume AD spends way more off ball than he is because of his 2015 season where 24% of his possessions were as the roll man. He honestly should be off ball far more, but he isn’t.
28.4% of his shots were within 3 feet, his career average is 34.7%
So did lebron lead to him getting super easy shots or anything like that or “playing it in easy mode?” No, not particularly.
Obviously, having Lebron is better than not having Lebron, it’s silly to say otherwise, but the idea that AD had some sort of unprecedented level of openness he never experienced before is just not true.
Regular season
Lebron on
32.3/12.4/4.5 on 3.1 turnovers a game and 59.3 TS
Lebron off
40.6/12.6/4.0 on 3.8 turnovers a game and 64.0 TS
Playoffs
Lebron on
34.4/12.4/4.4 on 3.2 turnovers a game and 65.5 TS
Lebron off
43.2/14.2/5.2 on 3.8 turnovers a game and 68.7 TS
Lost most of my post after this cuz the page reloaded, so gonna be pretty brief here
This isn’t to say Lebron doesn’t help AD, lebron there is better than lebron not there of course
But it’s
ridiculously overstated. Yes, a lot of ADs assists are from lebron, since lebron is quite literally the only playmaker other than rondo on that team. Unless the idea is Lebron makes it so that off ball movement is a million times easier because everyone is watching lebron, which I just feel isn’t a statement I have to respond to because that’s just kinda wild lol (most of those assists were Lebron watching and waiting vs doing something and AD doing something in secondary weakside action)
I think the idea is either because of how nba defenses set up vs slashers, (shell defense), or because opponents ran zone a few times and it looks like they’re loading up on bron (and to be clear AD then broke the zone because bigs that can shoot from the nail kill the zone). If it’s because teams didn’t instantly double AD like they did in the 2000s that’s just not understanding how modern defenses and offenses interact lol. Sometimes the gameplan is hard doubles but it’s hardly the norm, it’s not as if defenses didn’t pack the paint or send help against AD either, but he acts really fast especially if he has a step, but most people confuse post doubles with them deciding to double when someone cuts from the wing or something and the defender that was stunting high messed up and has to kind of make up for it, or run back.
But it’s like, yeah if lebrons attacking you can just help off of one of the Lakers many inconsistent shooters than isn’t AD, and if AD is attacking you can help off of one of the many inconsistent shooters that isn’t Lebron, and we kind of did see the paint get completely packed in the Nuggets series especially at times (Houston too early on, idr the blazers or the heat)
It’s like the Lebron and AD pick and roll is this unstoppable beast that they just don’t run, in reality teams have just switched it and found decent success, which is why they don’t run it much. At the very least if they switch that helps Lebron far more and hes the one attacking, the guys that guard Lebron are usually the ones that guard AD, since you want more mobile bigs or strong tall wings guarding AD vs plodding bigs who he killed
You could also drop too, which is okay, brons a decent three point shooter though so it’s not ideal, and in the bubble AD was going crazy from three. To be clear the majority of the time they dropped AD ended up going for long twos, they went in though.
Rondo is a non scoring threat and despite his percentages they let him shoot, so you just focus on stopping AD.
Essentially most of the positives form the pick and roll game come from the fact that if they mess up the coverage it works out, but there are definately better pick and roll partners in the nba solely for ADs efficiency
ADs pretty much never had an “ideal” pick and roll partner his entire career anyways, so he could be unlocked hella if he had that
Beyond that, ADs skillset in my opinion offensicely goes
off-ball scoring/P and R rolling and cutting > posting up > face up game.
Vogel is a pretty horrible offensive coach, I think most laker fans would attest to that, and they don’t have a guy that requires you to stay on the level of the ball handler in p and r like a Kyrie/lillard/Murray/Curry/Trae, so I don’t think his off ball scoring is particularly maximized, evidenced by his relatively suprising lack of cuts and roll possessions anyway.
The Lakers have pretty trash spacing relative to the nba, especially in the bubble, Pretty much everyone who followed them knows the defense just packed into the paint and chilled there. I mean the Lakers were 21st in three point shooting and volume with lebron and AD, I think that says it all lol.
Bubble wise, rondos numbers were a result of them letting him take open shots, and I don’t think they were particularly scared of green whose shot died in the playoffs, so the Lakers 3 reliable rotation three point shooters other than AD were lebron/KCP/kieff
Also the Lakers don’t know how to run a basic post possession if the defense helps at literal incompetent levels lmao
https://www.bball-index.com/the-lakers-have-a-post-problem/So AD was in easy mode in the sense that he and Lebron both had incredible ATG postseasons on the same team and killed everyone else
AD being in easy mode in terms of his scoring despite having the largest on ball role in his career, a relatively low percentage of his shots as the typical high value off ball shots, especially considering he’s primary skill is off ball, on a team with pretty horrendous spacing relative to the rest of the nba, on a team with poor offensive coaching that also particularly struggles at coaching a post offense.
It was easy mode in terms of the wins being easy, but that’s about it, people handwave and say “Lebron” without explaining what that actually means, when you look into his actual offensive situation that’s not a situation conducive to historic effeciency high volume scoring as a big
I guess the one thing is lebron ran the offense for the most part? The only series where lebron was super clearly running the show in comparison was the heat series where AD was hurt anyway (and still hit 25ppg on 67TS with DPOY defense). I don’t think ball dominance is necessary for high impact anyways
