MyUniBroDavis wrote: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.
Defense[/u][/b]
My 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
