2016 LebronMy Argument is mainly based upon practicality.
Because of the nature of player comparisons, in trying to be consistent we tend to fall into the trap into trying to evaluate every season the exact same way, such as how some people weight regular season more or some people weigh playoffs more as if there is some sort of formula we should keep constant. While how much you weigh regular season vs playoffs is up to you, i do believe that it is a mistake to take seasons at face value rather than into context.
First of all, lets discuss 2016 as a season.
Throughout the entire regular season, it was basically seen as a Curry coronation year, he had become the face of the nba, the warriors were the greatest team in nba history, etc etc etc. The only team people thought could really challenge them were the spurs, who had also been having an all time season.
In the next tier of regular season teams were the cavs and the thunder.
Playoff Lebron had been a thing for awhile, that he ramps it up one way or another in the regular season and turns it up in the playoffs.
Beyond that, I think the idea that RS lebron wasnt a great RS Is overblown, yes he started off a bit weak but he turnt it up.
Dr.MJ Made a chronology RAPM sheet, about like how we should look at it in standard deviations when comparing year to year. From a datasheet of 2002-2016, here is how Lebrons overall season ranks, in standard deviations above zero. (JE said people asking for PI RAPM should use this data im using, so i guess you could consider it PI, but people who know more about it then me would be able to explain that better)
02 Duncan 3.23
03 Duncan 4.37
04 Garnett 4.88
05 Duncan 4.07
06 Manu 3.30
07 Manu 3.79
08 Garnett 4.34
09 Lebron 4.69
10 Lebron 4.45
11 Lebron 4.64
12 Lebron 4.378
13 Lebron 3.3
14 Lebron 3.29
15 Lebron 4.13
16 Lebron 4.382
I put an extra decimal to differentiate, but he shows up as the 5th best season of the past 15 year overall. (a bit more significantly, its the 4th best Lebron season, behind his first cleveland stint, and behind that 04 Garnett year).
I tried to approximate his RS, i replaced the top 10 values with the top 10 values on the thread, and he shows up at 3.90, which put him at 12th in the past 12 years (2 garnett years beat him that werent first, in 05 and 08). It should be noted that since the values ended up with the 10th largest value being lower than the 11th (which i didnt know) this is probably underestimating it
While not necessarily a GOAT RS contender at all, by this measure it was a MVP level one at the very least. Keep in mind, this is 3 seasons prior informed, so it takes into account 2014 (his NPI RAPM ranked 20th that year) and 2015 (3rd)
Garnett ranked 12th in 2002 and 1st in 2003 in NPI RAPM, Lebron 6th in 07 and 10th in 08, 2nd in 09, first in 10, and 19th in 11.
Duncan 2nd in 01, 02, 03, and 7th in 04
Earlier seasons are weighted less but his 2010 one is one of the best ones on record so its hard to see how 2012 was influenced by that, but we can comfortably say 2011 is behind it (which i think isnt really a controversial opinion).
Overall, what picture does this paint? 2016 Lebron was as a whole ATG from an impact standpoint in spite of the fact that he took the RS easy in comparison. (with the obvious thing to note, that a good postseason<good RS in this type of metric).
Looking at his RS in isolation, his impact was still quite great, at the very least MVP level.
(Peak TD beats the mark twice, KG 4 times twice in his celtics run, no one else beats it).
Its worth noting that i did this for NPI as well (Standard deviations and stuff), his full season ranks 4th in this regard, behind 2009 Odom (def outlier), and 2011 Dirk
His RS is hard to rank, because using the method i did before to approximate it actually causes a bit of a bigger issue.
He comes out 13th, but here the 10th largest value ranks 14th, and teh values for the most part all decreased that appeared, so im definitely underestimating this one more than the other one. If i take out the values inbetween (so the 10th to 14th values), it jumpts to 9th in the past 15 years, and thats still underestimating it.
It should be noted Luck Adjustement actually increases his ranking over the whole season, according to shotcharts (its weighted differently so i didnt get the std dev here, i had thought it includes playoffs but im not sure, him ranking third in that one makes me think it doesnt though since thats with NPI RS). Luck adjustment is generally better prediction wise, but esp offensively i wonder how good it is. Sometimes i think its useful but ive heard on multi year samples it hurts more than helps so it definitely isnt strictly better, and some results (Currys esp) seem a bit odd, but its just something to note that it doesnt seem like its something weird pushing it up.
Note:This is based off the dropbox link he gave in an APBR RAPM request forum awhile back, so thats why its different from DocMJ’s RAPM Chronology sheet
The actual value should not be the only thing considered, because my argument here isnt about overall cumulative value but over practical value. I think that his postseason run was substantially more effective than his Regular season run on both ends, and I value that more even if this would value that less. At the very least, i think people value the playoffs more than this would, in the sense that it represents more games without extra weight on those games and we all probably weigh a playoff game more than a regular season one.
His regular season itself however, was not as bad as i think it was assumed to be based off of this.
Overall, in using this method that I think is a better way to compare
His RS would be 12th from 2002-2015 in PI-RAPM (underestimated), with a caveat that the priors hurt him more than other candidates, its underestimated most likely based on how I did it, and 12th is misleading because of the fact that hes only beaten by 3 players separately, and 1 of them 6th in last years peaks project list, the other one like the god of RAPM, and himself during a run where he probably was the highest RS impact player ever (not calling his playoffs trash lol)
His RS would be 13th in NPI-RAPM And it doesnt seem he was “lucky” even if that isnt necessarily a strictly more accurate adjustment, the fact that it doesnt hurt him to turn it on would at least imply that he wasnt carried by extraneous factors to an extent. Unlike the other one, this was heavily underestimated, and even trying to mitigate this doesnt solve it fully and it comes out to 9th in the past 15 years.
His overall seasons both come out great in both of them as well.
So thats the crux of my, I guess RAPM portion of my argument here, but ill leave out with this tweet as well, hard to put into context without other data, but still is quite good for obvious reasons. At the very least, I think what we can garner from the RAPM side of the argument is that it looks the season as a whole is consistent with this placement (from PI RAPM, also finding out it was just weighting older seasons as priors had me shook) it does reach have all time levels, behind his first stint cleveland run and 04 KG).I dont think i need to debate 04 KG here, and him being ranked below his cleveland runs isnt really surprising.
So TLDR:RAPM says his RS was still fantastic
His overall Season is consistent with a 1# Peak, since playoffs are going to be weighed 20% for them and probably more than 50% for most here.
Might be underestimating him.
I always say you need more than just impact data (and im not like, RAPM is gospel or anything) so in explaining why, his RS fine, ill try to be a bit more brief
I dont understand this much but
https://backpicks.com/2017/10/02/the-plus-minus-goat-list-1994-2016/His 2016 RS also ranks high up here
Regular Season Offense
Ive explained my thoughts on his offense in other threads, but essentially I think he was a bit superior as a playmaker in spite of similar assist numbers, and better at running the offense/picking his spots. I also think his off ball movement was a bit more on point, making better reads and stuff for example when the defence helps on kyrie off the wing he would cut more, but obv thats not easy to prove. Now, at the same time his 3pt jumper in the RS was kinda dead, although this might be a bit exagerrated because he started taking less off the catch and more difficult off the dribble ones after miami, but this doesnt make up for the difference.
However, offensively im willing to concede he may not have been as valuable in the RS as he had been during his prime years, that the jump shot offset his playmaking up untill that point.
I do think this was more of a case of LeCoast rather than a lack of ability, in terms of his overall offensive impact (and even his shooting to an extent). We see him up his offense after the all star break, the cavs offense with him on the court was even better than the warriors offense with curry on the court at this point (Post all star break Lebron, overall RS curry), although his defensive impact slipped a bit if we go purely by net rtg as well
As for whether this was intentional, heres a good post in 2016 breaking down bron later in the season, it was probably intentional.
Im not calling it the best RS offense of his career, but at the end of the day, decent for Lebron is still ATG offensively.
Regular Season DefenseDefensively, I’m high on 2016 Lebron.
I’ll get more into it on his playoff defense and particularly his finals defense, but homecourtloss summarizes it nicely here
homecourtloss wrote:LeBron, 2016 was not only top 50% in all play type tracking but at worst was top 27% in post up defense. Yes, there may not be many possessions in certain play types so there’s less meaning there, but every other player falls short somewhere. I haven’t seen a single player in the tracking area who is top 30% in all areas and very very few who are top 50% minimum in each.
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
Compare these numbers with these:
Kawhi, 2016—DPOY on a GOATy defensive team and maybe co-#1 option with LMA
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—2nd in DPOY voting on a GOAT team and not the #1 option on offense
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
ISO defense
LeBron: .59 points per possession (PPP), 93rd percentile
Draymond: .68, 85th percentile
Kawhi: .69 PPP, 83rd percentile
Pick and roll ball handler
Kawhi: .65 PPP, 90th percentile
LeBron: .66 PPP, 88th percentile
Draymond: .88, 71st percentile
Pick and roll roll man
Kawhi: .50 PPP, 98th percentile
LeBron: .70 PPP, 84th percentile
Draymond: .77 PPP, 75th percentile
Post defense
Draymond: .65 PPP, 89th percentile
LeBron: .77 PPP, 73rd percentile
Kawhi: .77 PPP, 71st percentile (numbers are rounded so James might have been at .772 and Kawhi at .768 or something)
Spot up defense
LeBron: .80 PPP, 87th percentile
Kawhi: .88 PPP, 75th percentile
Draymond: .91 PPP, 66th percentile
Off screens defense
Draymond: .45 PPP, 98th percentile
LeBron: .74PPP, 85th percentile
Kawhi: 1.05 PPP, 31st percentile
Hand offs defense
LeBron: .49 97th percentile
Kawhi: .72 PPP, 78th percentile
Draymond: .91 PPP, 43rd percentile
Regular season
Draymond Green:
Overall: 39.4 DFG%, opponents usually shoot 45.5%, -6.1%
Threes: 29.4 DFG%, opponents usually shoot 34.6%, -5.1%
Twos: 42.9 DFG%, opponents usually shoot 49.2%, -6.3%
<6ft: 51.9 DFG%, opponents usually shoot 60.6%, -8.7%
Kawhi
Overall: 39.2 DFG%, opponents usually shoot 44.8%, -5.6%
Threes: 33.7 DFG%, opponents usually shoot 34.9, -1.2%
Twos: 41.7 DFG%, opponents usually shoot 48.8%, -7.2%
<6ft: 53.5 DFG%, opponents usually shoot 60.5%, -7.0%
LeBron:
Overall: 37.4 DFG%, opponents usually shoot 44.7%, -7.3%
Threes: 32.1 DFG%, opponents usually shoot 34.6%, -2.6%
Twos: 40.8 DFG%, opponents usually shoot 49.0%, -8.2%
<6ft: 48.6 DFG%, opponents usually shoot 59.9%, -11.3%
Tracking data isnt super great, I know the rim protection data is at least more referred and i think more respected even if it also is imperfect, and synergy data also isn’t perfect.
RAPM data puts him as a strong positive, a bit more than a standard deviation ahead, and as I said before luck adjustment helps his defense a bit which could imply that this underrated him slightly.
In any case, while his RS wasnt DPOY worthy, I would say a combination of these things makes me pretty confident in saying he was an All-NBA defensive first team calibre defender. *Caveat that draymond and kawhi were both better on defense because they were crazy.
Either way, I think his Regular season can be defined as a high level Lebron offensive season + All NBA first team type defender. Kawhi and Draymond are standouts of course, but in a more typical year I think he had around a best perimeter defender in the nba season or close to it. I think he quarterbacked more on defense this season, and obviously we know his defensive IQ.
Beyond that, we do have data of Lebron not playing and Kyrie and Love playing.
9 point loss to OKC 2015
8 point loss to Atlanta 2015
4 point win vs hornets 2015
19 point loss vs Dallas
12 point loss vs Houstan
18 point loss vs Warriors
19 point loss vs Kings
5 point win vs Wizards
2016
14 point loss vs wizards
1 point win vs Dallas
14 point loss vs Indiana
2017
16 point loss vs detroit
10 point loss vs Indiana
3-10, a -9.9 ish point differential per game against reasonably tough competition
For a more simpler perspective
I think they were probably a 25 win team, I think thats pretty fair/conservitive all things considered, esp with how many games kyrie and players in general missed. With Lebron otoh, they were a 60 win team.
Over the course of the 3 years without him, with their two stars healthy, they play at a 19 win pace, an average MOV of -9.9 (SRS is MOV-SOS i think), which even with their tough Strength of schedule would imply a -8 SRS team. I think calling them a 25 win team might be conservative. Keep in mind this isnt a healthy cavs team, this is a cavs team where 6 players outside of lebron played above 70 games, and Kyrie was not one of them, and Kyrie played 53 games.
But thats my gist on his regular season, I think his regular season was one where he was an elite two way player essentially (Shocking!), good enough both ways for it to be an ATG regular season for most, but simply a very solid one for bron.
When evaluating his RS, i do think we should remember that 25 to 60 wins is absolutely Top tier level.
Their average Margin of victory when Lebron did play was 7.13, the average team they faced with him out was 43.5-38.5, so their SOS would go down a bit. Lets be conservative and decrease it by 0.1, which would make them an outlier for weakest schedule in the league
So Lebron brought a team thats probably a -3 SRS (a bit of a overestimation potentially, I think this correlates to 30-35 wins) and brought them to a 6.5 SRS when he played (he only missed 5 games of course).
I think one issue we do run into is because of his absurdity in his first cleveland stint we dont really see how crazy this is.
The average MOV was +8.04 with Kyrie and Lebron playing, which using the same SOS would could out to a +7.4SRS team roughly.
Keep in mind this cavs team with kyrie is probably a 30 win team around, based on games they were closer to a 15-20 win team in this stretch but that just seems unrealistic.
The raw SRS increase isn't as important, I do think its easier to bring a -5 to a +5 than a +0 to a +10 of course, but even so.
Overall, in SRS terms id say that he brought a -5SRS team to +6.5, or -3SRS to 7.4SRS
In RAPM terms.
In more practical terms he brought a team that was a 25 win team (given their health), to a 60 win team when he played (57 wins overall, first seed in their conference etc etc).
From the perspective of Lebron seasons, it obviously wasnt as good as first stint Lebron RS-wise, I dont think its vastly inferior to his other seasons though.
I do think we need to take this out of the perspective of a lebron season though, and view it in a vacuum. I know i said take seasons into context but I do think that this lebron season gets overshadowed by the fact that 2016 curry might be the GOAT RS and it was happening at the same time
Statistically, this was the 2016 season, I do think lebron had more spacing then say, Kobe in 2006 obviously but league average offensive rtg wasnt particularly high at this point, under that context his averages of an efficient 25-7-7 on +4.7TS, is quite good (5th in scoring, 7th in assists, with the obvious knowledge that this doesnt demonstrate his true effectiveness/impact as a passer). Stats werent inflated in 2016 in raw averages like today, which should be kept in mind.
if a random 2 elite perimeter player went into a (lets say) 25 win team, brings them to a first seed, 57 win team (or 60 win team when he plays), his impact metrics go anywhere from high quality MVP to Historic (keep in mind Duncan/Lebron/Garnett are absolutely top tier RS for obvious reasons, top tier in general but wtv lol). That wouldnt be a non-historic season.
Ignoring lebrons years, When we think about the ATG Seasons, the top 6 for last year, 91 Jordan, 00 Shaq, 67 Wilt, 77 Kareem, 03 Duncan, we can kind of see it for their prime seasons around that.
These seasons are held in higher regard because of Regular season “ceiling raising” more so than the other way around. I think ceiling raising and floor raising are both based on talent available.
Its a bit harder to gauge 2000 Shaq because of Kobes obviously improvement between 2000 and 2001, with Jordan we saw his team win 45 games in 1994, for kareem the 77-78 Lakers went 8-12 without him, 37-25 with him, the 76ers went 41-41 the year before Wilt game, etc.
An incredible simplistic way to look at it, but my main point is that I think that the gap between 2016 Lebrons Regular season and other ATG Regular seasons are overblown. Under the context of his career, raising a 25-30 win team to a 60 win team isnt very impressive, because he brought a team worse than that to be a 66 win team. Under the scope of other careers I think its very impressive, and while im not calling it “The best floor raising season other than 09 and 10 Lebron” or anything crazy like that, it did appear to be an all time effort, and at the very least impact data seems to agree with that, even if it looks less impressive because of the absurdity that is Dray and Curry in 2016.
Was it the greatest RS ever? No. However, it gets overshadowed because of it coinciding with 2016 Curry, and because of Lebrons floor raising efforts of the past. Bringing a 25 win team to 57 wins isnt unheard of impact, but it also isnt bad impact.
In evaluating his Regular season, I would say that when im evaluating it, if we were to look at it like a rating on both ends, for regular seasons I would be a bit higher on his defense and lower on his offense than in the NPI RAPM splits, if that makes sense (like if we call those splits the 2k ratings for players).
PlayoffsThis is where I think he makes the argument for peaks. This argument mainly stems from the defensive side, but lets break this down on both ends of the court.
First, a bit of a premise on why Lebron is built for the playoffs, beyond just him going Playoff mode (which is most of it to be clear).
It mainly based of his IQ, which im convinced from a game management standpoint is GOAT. Alot of bball is making the right reads and there are a few (VERY few) who actually do make the right reads maybe a bit more consistently than lebron, or at least at a similar rate.
However, I do think hes the GOAT when it comes to the chess match of looking at the evolving “state” of the game and whats going on currently, basketball isnt a set of 98 isolated possessions for each team its a set of 98 consecutive possessions for each team, does that make sense? Runs dont happen only because of variance they often happen because something shifts.
I used to have the opinion that Lebron teams will counter any defense, I dont neccessarily think thats true anymore because the lakers have some stupid decision making from an offensive adjustement standpoint (they dont), although literally EVERY team has struggled from adjustments and not adjusted, so I do think this is a coach thing (Luke vs show and recover, idk if they adjusted but it was a big problem for a minute, CP3 vs the mavs diversifying their screen coverages, etc).
I stll do think that in the aspect of analyzing live possessions, Bron comes out best, dray puts it better than I could here.
https://theathletic.com/3367915/2022/06/15/draymond-green-celtics-lebron/“It doesn’t compare to mentally playing against LeBron James, who I think is arguably the smartest guy to ever play this game,” Green said. “Not one of, he is arguably the smartest guy to set foot on a basketball court. To say that it compares to that, it’s disrespectful to LeBron, and it’s a lie to you.” And then he said facing the Celtics is “not as much of a chess match as it is when you’re playing LeBron, who is dissecting every play in that computer of his, like in real time.”“Like that’s just a skill that not many people possess,” Green said. “Not many people can come and sit here and find a random stretch from seven minutes to four minutes in the second quarter and give you every play like to the T and not miss a beat. There’s not many people that can do that.” - Draymond
20 second to 1 minute mark of this video demonstrates what I mean kind of, in terms of directing schroder
How LeBron James Uses His Basketball IQ to Control the Game
www.youtube.com › watch
The rest of it was meh, cuz it was just kinda saying what was obviously going on but this shows it pretty well in terms of him being able to process possessions on the fly more than anyone else ever. This is beyond just knowing what coverages their running and how to beat it.
This doesnt mean he’s infallible, its on a coach to make certain decisions to counter defenses and for offenses to counter reads. We’ve seen pretty much everyone get stifled at times with bad offensive coaching, from CP3 this year to Luka vs the warriors show and recovering (did they start countering that? Idr), but I do think its on a level beyond other players for the most part. Many have said playing lebrons akin to a chess match
Obviously the “He knew the play” thing was kinda wild, but there are guys that know other teams playbooks inside and out, lebron is obviously one of them though, and clearly based on derozens reaction it absolutely is not the norm.
Paraphrased
“The playoffs lend itself to a guy with lebrons intelligence, because he finally has, not that he doesnt know this stuff in the RS, but in the playoffs you have time to prepare, to really break down film and the scouting report, to memorize all these plays, he prolly has most stuff memorized by games 1 or 2 but by game 3 he knows everything youre doing, on both sides of the ball” - Reddick
“Everything, every player, weakness strength, plays
-Derozen”
“It’s unbelievable,” Shumpert said. “Talking about someone who knows the playbook, where everybody is supposed to be. [He] knows the other team’s coach’s playbook, style of coaching, how his ball club is going to play. “Bron’s one of them when we’ll be going into Philly tonight, and he’ll be like, ‘Nah, but they just hired the new defensive coach, but he was at Georgetown for three years, and I played for him one time at camp, and this is how they’re going to play us.’“And you’d be like, ‘What? It's no surprise, given his illustrious career, which includes three NBA championships, four Most Valuable Player of the Year awards, and 16 All-Star selections, but James' ability to elevate the play of those around him may well go down as one of the greatest hallmarks of his playing career. “There were times where you’ve got somebody who has been red-hot, and they’re running it off, and we’re like, ‘Um, the scouting report said...’, and he’d be like, ‘Yeah, but I let him shoot that because in the left corner he only shoots 26 percent. He shoots 46 percent from three, but he only shoots 26 percent from the left corner. “And you’d be like, ‘Yes sir.’“... He made me feel like I didn’t do my homework.”“It's like he has to share basketball knowledge with people,” Shumpert said in an interview with VladTV. “It might be his biggest superpower; his ability to get everybody on the same page.” “Like, it’s actually kind of scary.” (Different article for this next part) Shumpert also gave a specific example of how LeBron would lay out what was about to happen on the floor as he had the ball. Then later on the bench, James would explain why a particular play was about to work in a certain way, before they actually ran it.The King never ceases to amaze.
Shumpert
“LeBron is so strategic in how he approaches the game. I think it gets talked about so much to the point where I don’t know it can just kind of be lip service I guess, but it’s talked about for good reason,I didn’t realize it until I was in it. In the playoffs last year or in the finals it’s almost like he’s playing chess when he gets the ball.He’s moving players, pointing, manipulating things, getting the floor structured to exactly his liking before he attacks, and I think that it’s magnified in the playoffs because the possessions go down, the game is slowed down and every possession matters more."
Duncan Robinson
Obviously, this translates to playoffs in many ways, offensively he’s directing and being a floor general even more effectively than in the regular season, both in what he does and what he directs others to do when they communicate.
Defensively we see a bigger jump imo. For, um, obvious reasons?
Offense
On the basis of offensive impact, his multiyear offensive RAPM increased by 0.3, and his NPI RAPM increased by 0.5.
On a more basic level, here were the cavs on court and off court offensive RTG in each series, per NBA.com (lower than bball ref usually) (im using median as the mean since i cant find avg for league average defense)
Per Nba.comRound 1, vs Pistons (def rank 13, -0.6 Rel Drtg)
Lebron on court Off RTG 120.5
Lebron off court Off RTG 105.7
Round 2, vs Hawks (def rank 13, -4.7 Rel Drtg)
Lebron on court Off RTG 122.2
Lebron off court Off RTG 106.7
ECF, vs Raptors (def rank 12, 0.7- Rel Drtg)
Lebron on court Off RTG 121.3
Lebron off court Off RTG 97.8
Finals, vs Warriors (def rank 6, -2.7 Rel Drtg)
Lebron on court Off RTG 108.7
Lebron off court Off RTG 96.7
Playoffs overall
Lebron on court off RTG 116.8
Lebron off court Off RTG 100.8
Nba.com Numbers are lower than bball ref, to put in perspective, 104.1 off rtg is league average, Curry’s court offensive rtg in the regular season was 117.5.
Obviously the last series was more defensive focused, but even with that his overall results are still very good.
An interesting thing is that Kyrie/Love/JR have better on court off rtg than him. However, there might be evidence this has something to do with the lineups they are in being more offensive focused.
Whereas Lebrons Drtg compared to his teammates (for players who played over 100 minutes, or more than 5 minutes a game) Lebrons DRTG was 103.3, 4th on that list, while he was off the court it was 107.2, the highest (as in worst) of any Cavaliers player.
The Drtg of Jr, KLove, and Kyrie are 106.8, 106.9, and 107.8 respectively, the top 3 (worst) on the team.
More interestingly, the off court def rtg of the team for those three are 96.8, 99,9, and 90.5 respectively. which probably is better evidence for this
Its hard to prove it without playoffs only RAPM (JE Tweeted Lebrons numbers for RS vs playoffs from 2014-2017 combined which ill post later if i can find, but theres no yearly seperation + I would think his 2015 run wasnt absurd in that regard).
First two rounds
His averages for the first two rounds as a whole are relatively unimpressive,
23.5-8.8-7.3 on 3.8 turnovers, 55.5TS
However, On a game by game basis, I believe that averaging his stats hurt him a bit. He had a horrible G3 efficiency wise vs the pistons (38.2TS), and against the hawks a turnover and 4 of his missed shots come from putbacks (in a possession where they score, although the last one it went off the floor and he scored out of bounds). That sequence drops his TS in that game from 51.7 to 43.2.
Outside of that, his efficiency was pretty great in 5 of the 6 remaining games, and in the only other game where his TS was below his average of the year, again 2 of his misses come from a possession he extended by getting an offensive board (he got it missed, then tt got it and he missed a three). His TS for that game goes to 60.4 taking that possession out (Which I think is fair if he made that possession in the first place from an impact perspective).
So here are his TS numbers throughout the first 2 rounds, with the offensive rebounding adjustment 58.6TS
69.9TS
38.2TS
54.1TS>>>>>60.4TS
58.3TS
71.2TS
60.1TS
43.2TS>>>>51.7TS
Justification for this adjustment: If a position is extended by him in the first place, I dont think it makes sense for his efficiency to tank from that. (of course I will decrease his offensive boards too whena accounting for this).
Obviously, a situation where he is just volleyballing it on those offensive rebound jumps isnt really gonna be controversial, the other possession where he does that once, and then someone else gets it and he misses it again is somewhat more contentious, but again he was the reason those possessions happened in the first place.
So his adjusted averages would be
23.5-8.3-7.3 on 3.6 turnovers, 58.55TS
Now, again, a bad efficiency game in game 3 does bring his averages down. Because they won fairly quickly and how averages work, it does have a bit too much leverage for me for one game. Ive heard people point out that there isnt much reason to take out outliers. To an extent i agree, but the impact they have on averages isnt the same as the impact a bad game has on the efficiency of a run.
Lets say someone shots 65TS for 4 games and 20TS for 1 game. That would mean they had a great high efficiency series, but it comes out as below average by taking the averages.
Taking out this outlier game (writing it as a bad game), and comparing it to 1991 Jordans (which I assume is going to get first place here), it compares favorably to Jordans when you take out his two lowest effeciency games (61.5TS vs 60.6TS). Obvious caveat that we dont have play by play data for jordan so we dont know if he had a putback situation like lebron.
So for the first 2 rounds, we have a situation where offensively by taking averages the illusion that he was inefficient (relatively speaking) was given off. Another way to look at it, after adjusting for offensive boards Lebron shot below league average TS twice (far below once, slightly below once), at his RS percentage twice, 2 60TS games (+6TS) and 2 70TS games (+16rTS). For comparisons sake, Jordan shot below 55TS in his first 8 games (where his TS was similar) 4 times, below 50TS twice.
What im trying to say is that his really bad shooting game has a disproportionate leverage on his averages than it has in a practical sense.
Overall, for the first two rounds he was actually quite efficient despite low shooting, had decent metrics. In general, lebrons assists are of high value. Or, in 7 games outside of a bad shooting game his TS% his TS was 61.5 (+7.4TS)
A key aspect of the Cavs offensive dominance was them shooting hot from three, even though they didnt fully embrace 5 out like they did in their later years (in either case its not as simple as 5 out instant great offense), esp in the first few rounds. I can double check this later, but of his assists I counted throughout his ECF run, 40 of his assists were on Threes, and 8 on layups or dunks, meaning 83% of his assists were on these.
Lebron averaged 22.1 assist points created, 9.1 adjusted assists throughout (compared to 17.8 and 8.3 in the regular season).
This isnt to say he was ATG beyond anything weve ever seen or anything, but what here are my main points.
The “intangible” offensive impact would be quite high, higher than in the RS
His playmaking ability was at least partially responsible for the cavs onslaught from three
His efficiency was a great deal higher than his RS effeciency, inspite of him being cold from three vs the pistons, it was just brought down by him getting his own misses and doing that thing where u keep missing but keep getting the rebound a few times, or misses off of possessions that he extended in the first place.
From a factual basis, yes the cavs were hot, but throughout those first two rounds the offense was +16.4 rel league avg vs the pistons, +18.1 vs the hawks, who were a second ranked defense.
It should be noted the hawks post all star break were the best defense in the league (also for the second half of the league), at a 98.7 def rtg, and were 99.1 def rtg since the new year. Its more relevant how you start than how you finish, since thats when playoff time hits, so TECHNICALLY over that span (48 games) they were a -6.5 defense (technically leage average in that span puts them as a -8 defense over 48 games since average defense was 107 in that span, so the same as the 08 celtics)
Im not calling them an ATG defense on part with like the absurdity that was the 08 celtics on that end, but its more so ive seen people argue they were meh on defense, and they really werent lol. They finished the season as an ATG defense after a poor start. (they were league average up untill the new year).
So bullet point summary of the first two rounds
Intangible impact mentioned earlier, floor generalship that extends to the rest of the team
High efficiency and quality playmaking makes up for a mild lack of volume
Offensive rebound tap in miss tap in miss plays account for a alot of his misses, it doesnt make sense for him to get penalized for 5 misses on one possession where he scores. For example. Ditto with outlier games, im not advocating for not counting them but they have too much leverage in this kind of sample
(main point) He led 2 outlier level ATG offenses, against a league average defense and a defense that you can rate from elite to ATG.
I am not saying that offensively he was like curry on steroids tier, but i do think in spite of slightly lower volume than the RS, other aspects of his offensive game (some more playoff centric, mainly the generalship more effective and impactful), mean he was quite impactful.
ECFDuring the ECF, 2 of his misses were misses he rebounded himself and then scored.
Game 1, Game 3 go up to 87.2TS, 62,9TS
But, I mean, he was absurdity, i dont think this need much debate. Destroyed and dominated the raptors
26-8.5-7 and 2 turnovers on 66.6TS in 36.6 minutes is fantastic I think no matter how you look at it. Just hypereffecient scoring pretty much so ATG tier for sure, remember this was before people started hitting like 35 a game lol.
The only real thing is they won too early for him to stay and rop like 30-10-10 or something
Finals
This was clearly a defensive oriented series, where as cheesy as it sounds, the “refs let them play” and both defenses let them take advantage of this
This led to more defensive impact and less offensive impact in my opinion.
His offensive struggles to an extent are overblown, he was passive more than bad in games 1 and 4 (relative to how aggressive he should have been) and missed some shots in game 3 and 7. Absolutely dominant in games 3, 5, and 6.
Game 1 had a similar thing where he had a volleyball battle with the rim, which accounted for 5 of his misses. This was split across two possessions, so we could say he had 2 possession “failures” which brings his TS% up to 58.2%, his average for the RS. This is offset by G4 where he got a few points in garbage time.
So 2 bad offensive games, 3 incredible offensive games, 1 passive one
I hesitate to call game 7 a bad one despite his shooting struggles at the end given how physical the defenses were playing (for obvious reasons), and at the time pretty much no one who saw it i think was saying he struggled offensively, so ill call it fine i guess.
This warriors defense has pretty consistently been great at stopping stars effeciencies, KD/Kawhi/Harden are all in the upper echelon of wing scorers and have all had their efficiencies absolutely tank vs them, so I do think that these struggles make sense. I have dray as the smartest defender of all time, i think that people who say “oh they were small” kind of ignore that theyve been able to defend wings really well in the playoffs for awhile now, different rosters obviously but the defensive stalwart in dray stays the same. Weve seen players struggle against them like they do against ATG interior defenses (and ATG ones in general) whenever their defense is quite good, and it comes down to good coaching and dray being probably the smartest defender ever.
Overall, I wouldn’t say wasnt a top tier run offensively at least over the course of the ECF.
He had an ATG offensive series against the raptors, the volume might not be there but thats because the games ended early. Its hard for me to blame him for not trying to score more in games where they won before the end of the third lol.
I think his offense in the ECF was ATG as a whole
As a summary:
Against the pistons: a bad game 3, quite great in games 1 and 2 (his passing game 1 was *chefs kiss), quite good in game 4 as well.
Against the hawks: against an elite defense that was technically ATG+ after the first half of the year (or after a tough start), hit 24-8-8, again, great in the first three games, a bit off in the last game but still decent.
Against the raptors: Lebronto (on a real sense I do think it was an ATG series in terms of level of play for sure)
Against the warriors: struggled a bit here more, although I think thats justifiable because of how much he put into his defense
DefenseMy argument for lebron being the GOAT peak revolves more around his defensive improvement in these playoffs.
RAPM increase here is much more pronounced
In NPI RAPM, his defensive RAPM increase from 1.86 to 2.89
In multiyear RAPM, his defensive RAPM increase from 2.04 to 2.74
The tracking data i think demonstrates this as well
Rim protection data is more useful here, I know its much more respected around analytics circles at least
Regular season tracking data
DEFENSE CATEGORY GP G DFGM DFGA DFG% FREQ% FG% DIFF%
Overall 76 76 3.2 8.4 38.4 100 44.7 -6.3
3 Pointers 76 75 1.0 3.2 32.2 38.1 34.7 -2.5
2 Pointers 76 75 2.2 5.2 42.2 61.9 49.0 -6.8
Less Than 6 Ft 76 71 1.2 2.3 50.9 27.2 59.4 -8.5
Less Than 10 Ft 76 72 1.4 2.9 48.4 34.8 54.6 -6.2
Greater Than 15 Ft 76 75 1.6 4.9 32.2 58.3 36.6 -4.5
Playoffs tracking data
DEFENSE CATEGORY GP G DFGM DFGA DFG% FREQ% FG% DIFF%
Overall 21 21 3.3 10.1 32.4 100 45.9 -13.5
3 Pointers 21 21 0.9 3.9 24.4 38.5 36.8 -12.4
2 Pointers 21 21 2.3 6.2 37.4 61.5 50.5 -13.1
Less Than 6 Ft 21 18 1.2 3.1 38.5 30.5 60.7 -22.3
Less Than 10 Ft 21 21 1.5 4.0 36.5 39.9 55.4 -18.9
Greater Than 15 Ft 21 21 1.4 5.2 27.3 51.6 37.5 -10.3
Rim protection data is about equal to his finals run surprisingly.
He wasnt contesting as many shots as centers or anything but the tracking data does come out to be quite elite.
Heres on off data for him in the playoffs
Round 1, vs Pistons (off rank 15, avg Rel Ortg)
Lebron on court Off RTG 103.7
Lebron off court Off RTG 130.9
Round 2, vs Hawks (off rank 20, -0.9 Rel Ortg)
Lebron on court Off RTG 103.2
Lebron off court Off RTG 112.9
ECF, vs Raptors (off rank 5th, +4 Rel Ortg)
Lebron on court Off RTG 102.2
Lebron off court Off RTG 83.9
Finals, vs Warriors (off rank 1, +8.2 Rel Ortg)
Lebron on court Off RTG 104.1
Lebron off court Off RTG 122
Playoffs overall
Lebron on court off RTG 103.3
Lebron off court Off RTG 107.2
League avg is about 105.5
As a whole, thats consistent with DPOY impact, and a raptors series where the raptors sucked in garbage time. It should be noted that a 102.2 defense vs a +4 offense turns to somethjing like a -7 defense although im not sure how much i agree with that method. In any case, despite his actualy on off in toronto defensively being sub par, lineups he was in were still elite, so its pretty consistent with noise in the off portion rather than the on portion. Ill break down the finals later
From a playoff perspective, having a ridiculous bball iq and the chance to play “chess” in this regard leads to him having a stronger impact in the playoffs on defense, I think the reasons for that would be fairly obvious, and statistically it seems theres a decent amount of evidence for it.
I wanted to see this play out so i decided to just review a few of the games i could find, took a quick peek at g1 vs the raptors and g5 and g6 vs the warriors, obviously looked more at the raptors game.
It pops up how much he is zooming past screens, he definitely had recovered alot of speed both laterally and agility wise by slimming down.
He isnt the main rim protector or anything, but they are a team that protects the rim by committee, he/Klove/TT all kind of switched around as guys who would defend at teh rim, by rotatiotions, but he was by far the most effective one. Teams constantly fumbled drop offs against him with a combination of brons quick hands and quickness to stop the dump offs,
Occasionally gambled but generally was great at reading plays and not getting “tricked” by them if that makes sense, and there were definitely times where his activity ramped up vs others, but he was never bad
It was crazy hard to score 1v1 on him, even when you get past him he applied so much back pressure you wouldnt even want to attempt a shot, and hed usually send you to the help.
There were alot of times that guys would iso on bron and not end up even taking a shot and passing it out with 5 seconds on the shotclock, or hed get past off a screen but bron would engulf them so hard that hed force a turnover, he applied crazy pressure when trapping, was quick enough to cover fo rhis mistakes if he overthought something and made a mistake doing so, and on another note the cavs seemed like a crazy smart team on defense despite their roster from an individual basis not being anything crazy defensively, and id assume that mostly comes from Lebron.
From an impact basis he played like a DPOY type, it should be noted that even in the raptors series, thats consistent with he played elite D while on the court, he cant control if the raptors get cold while he is off of it.
Im not calling his overall playoff performance a greatest defensive performance ever or anything, on the whole he wasnt better than dray over the playoffs of defense i think.
Otoh, 2016 Draymond was a strong DPOY that becomes roided up to an absurd degree over the playoffs, realistically i think literally EVERYTHING points to draymond being on the best playoff defenders ever shortlist.
Defensively he probably outdid green over the last few games of the finals though, which given his offensive load is absurd.
Overall, when evaluating his playoff defense there are reasons for it to be more effective, and it does seem like almost all the data pretty consistently would have him at a DPOY type of defender in the playoffs, and logically it does make sense
