APBRmetrics

It just seems like when I pay attention to his defense, he gives barely any effort. It seems like he barely ever tries to stay in front of his man on dribble drives. It seems like players are able to blow by him with incredible ease. I think I read something like he stayed in front of his man on only 40% of drives last season, when the league median was around 50%. And I think I also read that the Heat were much better on defense with him off the court. It seems like the mainstream media still regards him as one of the best defenders in the league. Does anyone have any in depth statistical analysis to examine his defensive impact? My gut feeling is that his defensive effort is so pathetic that he is literally one of the worst defenders in the league.

His defensive RAPM last season was negative and has declined the last 5 years, with last season having most of the drop off. Several writers attributed last season to intentional energy conservation but even the 5 year trend there may be more to it. Counterpart data at 82games suggests he is better individually and at team level playing / presumably guarding SF than PF. His DWS and DBPM last season were lowest since he was a rookie. Give it 20-40 games before making judgments about the state of his defense. Or wait til playoffs when it really matters most. We'll see how he foes at the lighter weight and presumably mostly or exclusively at SF.

I think calling him a "Horrible Defender" is a bit of a stretch, though it may be fair to say he's fallen off from the fairly lofty standards he set for himself.

His 2014 Defensive RAPM was significantly below average, and as you alluded to, Vantage numbers midway through 2014 didn't think much of his defense either. If I recall correctly, synergy also had issues with his defense.

Beyond that, its pretty clear by watching LeBron that he's no longer a defensive plus for a team. He gives up drives a little to frequently, rarely runs out to shooters, and for some reason, seems pretty awful at contesting shots, even when in position. A lot of this probably stems from disinterest, as he still seems to play good D when the situation really calls for it.

What bothers me is how many NBA pundits still automatically assume LeBron's a good (or even great) defender. Even Zach Lowe recently had a piece where he described LeBron as Miami's best defender last year. I mean, out of Miami's Top-5 (Rio,Wade,LBJ,Bosh,Bird) LeBron was arguably the worst defender of the lot.


http://hoopdon.weebly.com/

The award voters made James 2nd team all-D last season and 6th for DPOY.

Kathoro wrote:It just seems like when I pay attention to his defense, he gives barely any effort. It seems like he barely ever tries to stay in front of his man on dribble drives. It seems like players are able to blow by him with incredible ease. I think I read something like he stayed in front of his man on only 40% of drives last season, when the league median was around 50%. And I think I also read that the Heat were much better on defense with him off the court. It seems like the mainstream media still regards him as one of the best defenders in the league. Does anyone have any in depth statistical analysis to examine his defensive impact? My gut feeling is that his defensive effort is so pathetic that he is literally one of the worst defenders in the league.

The Heat's defense was 2 points p100p better with him off the court in '13-'14 (3 points better with him on the court in '12-'13). That's far away from "much better with him off". RAPM and xRAPM both have him as a +/- ~0 on defense, i.e. as "average".

Remember that defense is a lot more than stopping your guy from penetrating. He's also "helping" his team's defense by being such an awesome offensive player - by making shots and lowering his teammates' (and his team's) turnovers his opponents are probably running less fast-breaks when he's on the court

My gut feeling is that his defensive effort is so pathetic that he is literally one of the worst defenders in the league.

lets look at this from the big picture...

lebron was in miami 4 years. during that time miami was 5th in the league in defense, allowing 102.8 pts/100poss. the league average was 105.3, the league range 99.8 (chi) to 108.5 (sac) pts/100poss allowed...

in the regular season those 4 years the heat played 75580 total minutes, of which lebron played 11168 (1/6 to 1/7 of the total). so let's do a little math:

(102.8)(75580) = (64412)(X) + (11168)(Y)

where Y is lebron's defensive contribution in pts/100poss allowed and X is the rest of the team's contribution in pts/100poss allowed...

if you set lebron's contribution Y to 102.8, which was the team's rating, then X, the rest of the team, is also 102.8...

if you set lebron's contribution Y to 108.5, which was the rating of the worst defensive team over that 4 year stretch, then the rest of the miami heat team's rating is 101.8 pts/100poss allowed, which would make the miami team sans lebron over that 4 year stretch equivalent to the 3rd best defensive team in the league - over 4 full years...

do you really think the other 33 miami heat players that played 64412 minutes those 4 years played what amounts to the 3rd best defense in the league? with ray allen, james jones, rashard lewis, mike miller, carlos arroyo, eddie house, michael beasley, and mike bibby playing 14281 of those 64412 minutes (22% of the remaining minutes)? i sure don't...

even if you set lebron's defensive contribution Y to the league average over the 4 years, 105.3 pts/100poss allowed, that would still make the rest of the team's defensive contribution 102.4 pts/100poss, which would equate to the 4th-5th best team defense...

lastly, lebron's synergy defensive numbers (PPP, FG%, eFG% allowed) the last 4 years, while not stellar, were significantly better/lower than the league averages for both SFs and PFs...

so regardless of what he may have done when you've paid attention, the numbers seem to suggest he's been a good defender...

I think he's one of the best defenders in the league. Keep in mind he expends a lot of energy at the offensive end of the court, and yet still manages to be superhuman on defense.

Check out this article:
http://deadspin.com/lebron-james-is-a-b ... -456410614

Ultra-aggressive help defense is really hard work. Replay that clip and watch how far DeRozan's ghost has to move as the Knicks swing the ball. That's brutal, and it's not a coincidence that the only team that consistently mirrors the help defense of its ghosts is Miami, Rucker says. The Heat have three of the best wing defenders in the league in Shane Battier, LeBron James, and Dwyane Wade, and the latter two are among the NBA's most gifted pure athletes. James can mimic DeRozan's hyperactive ghost in a way no other player can, Rucker says. "LeBron basically messes up the system and the ghosts," Rucker says. "He does things that are just unsustainable for most players."

bchaikin I didn't mean the Lebron over the last 4 seasons combined. I mean the Lebron of last season and potentially this season.

Kathoro wrote:It just seems like when I pay attention to his defense, he gives barely any effort. It seems like he barely ever tries to stay in front of his man on dribble drives. It seems like players are able to blow by him with incredible ease. I think I read something like he stayed in front of his man on only 40% of drives last season, when the league median was around 50%. And I think I also read that the Heat were much better on defense with him off the court. It seems like the mainstream media still regards him as one of the best defenders in the league. Does anyone have any in depth statistical analysis to examine his defensive impact? My gut feeling is that his defensive effort is so pathetic that he is literally one of the worst defenders in the league.

He was well below his standard in 2014. Having watched ~90% of his games since 08-09, there's a clear difference in his defense when looking at the 09-13 period and the 2014 season (I believe RAPM agrees). His specialty is rotational help defense/PnR coverage and lane disruption. Looking at that 09-13 period, his awareness on defensive rotations is really impressive, and he's able to use his length/mobility to basically cover for teammates' missed rotations at a low opportunity cost because his quickness allows him to recover on to his dude so quickly and he can do this for any position (this is where the "guarding 1-5" is valuable). In single coverage, the biggest factor is that he's got the diversity to stick with anyone without needing help. He's got the base and height to cover bigger guys inside and the length/agility to stick with quicker smalls, without needing a double (no advantage/power play created by an offense that isolates against James).

On the PnR, he can show against the ball-handler while still maintaining position on his man (again, length and quickness) and this can help disrupt the entire function the PnR. He's no Garnett or Pippen, but when you tally this together (along with solid defensive rebounding presence and major transition disruption), its huge defensive impact for a non-big. Between those 5 seasons, I'd go:

2012 - Best combination of motor/stamina/strength
2013 - 2012 with better quickness/mobility but poorer stamina
2009 - Similar to 2012, but lacks the strength advantage and awareness/timing isn't quite where it would be in 2012. Peak transition defense
2010 - Similar to 2009, slightly inconsistent in the regular season but looked as good or better than 09 in the postseason
2011 - Similar to 09/10, but with poorer mobility and quickness

2014 is a clear dropoff. He has major stamina issues, seems to have a hard time with quicker smalls (lots of blowbys), seemed less focused with his rotations, largely inconsistent. He showed up for some marquee matchups and looked pretty solid in the postseason (a positive, but still lagging behind the previous 5 seasons), we saw his defensive RAPM trend upward (towards zero from a small negative) as the sample grew to include playoff games.

Too early to tell this season. The weight loss should help with stamina and mobility, so that's something to look for, but I'd wager he's in line with 2014.

EDIT: Just saw this so I suppose disregard.

Kathoro wrote:bchaikin I didn't mean the Lebron over the last 4 seasons combined. I mean the Lebron of last season and potentially this season.