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Since entering the NBA in October 2003, LeBron James, who was one of the least performers in terms of volume, has become a hyper-effective offensive brain, dominating the opposing defenses with an incredible mix of inner feats and peripheral fire creation. .
On Thursday, he begins the next chapter of his career. While there is no doubt that striker James will continue to thrive in Los Angeles, there are legitimate reasons to wonder if Lakers with the new look have enough firepower to take advantage of the ability to create great looks for his teammates.
Let's go on to his path to offensive greatness and what it means for this new test at L.A .. We'll start at the very beginning.
How LeBron owned the painting
Just two days after Lonzo Ball turned six, James made his NBA debut in Sacramento. It did not take him long to go. After going through a screen set by Carlos Boozer about three minutes into the match, James dribbled his first shot at the NBA. It was a disturbing success for the kid from Akron; the rider found the bottom of the net:
Since that first bucket, James has attempted 22,382 extra goals in the regular season and has made 11,279. He will start the season Thursday night as the seventh top scorer in the history of the NBA. If he stays healthy, it's reasonable to expect him now ahead of Dirk Nowitzki, Wilt Chamberlain and Michael Jordan in fourth place at the end of the regular season.
But James fought hard as a scorer in his rookie campaign. Of the 46 players who have attempted at least 1,000 field goals this season, James is ranked 41st as a percentage of total goals scored. His rookie shooting table reveals a young player who was a mediocre and just average jump shoter in the painting. He had not yet figured out how to use his size and speed to get easy buckets on the rim or draw round-trips, and to say that his rider was ineffective is a major understatement.
He was not yet king. Consider this trio of plebian statistics:
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Of 74 NBA players who have attempted at least 200 points this season, James is ranked 72nd by converting only 29% of his attempts. Only Jason Richardson and Antoine Walker were less efficient downtown.
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Of the 126 players in the NBA who have attempted at least 200 shots in midfield, James is ranked 119th.
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Of 114 NBA players who have attempted at least 200 shots in the restricted area, James is ranked 72nd.
To date, his rookie year statistics include the lowest in career percentage of goal goals, percentage of live shot, free throw rate, PER and percentage of help. But in his second season, James has improved in almost all key statistical categories.
He showed flashes of the monster from the inside that he would soon become stronger at the edge, making more mistakes and forcing fewer shots. Its percentage of 3 points went from terrible to medium, although despite some promising numbers in the corners, there remained a threat of relatively modest scope:
James' ability to score at the cart would quickly become his business card. In his first playoff series in 2006 against the Wizards, James converted two huge buckets at the end of the game to propel his team to victory. He won match 3 with a dribble punctuated by a fake ball that sent Antonio Daniels out of the game, followed by an impossible stalemate over Michael Ruffin. He won the fifth game with a super-fast workout requiring equal speed, power and touch, which his lay-up winner managed to score with 0.9 seconds in overtime.
The key to unlocking his potential as a young scorer was simple: finding ways to leverage his strength, which ended up in the bucket. The story of James turning from novice champion into NBA scoring champion is that of a player learning to attack the defenses with his fierce mix of speed and strength to create scoring chances in the paint . It's still the key to his wallet scores now.
During the 2007-08 season, James was the only player to attempt 600 shots or more in the restricted area. On his way to the scorer title, he led the NBA converting 794 goals, but 440 of them (55.4%) went into the restricted area. James has become the best in the world to score in the small area that the NBA defense is working to protect the most. Who needs a very good shot when you can score as much in the painting?
In 2008, James had realized his potential as an individual player. He was really the most versatile basketball star. During the 2008-09 season, he led his team to points, rebounds, assists, robberies and blockages. It's amazing. But that also suggests that it was not really surrounded by an excellent distribution. When James reached his peak, he migrated from Cleveland to Miami. It's surrounded by a much better basketball environment, and what followed is undoubtedly the LeBron James Peak. Playing alongside Chris Bosh and Dwyane Wade, James could miss out on the difficult shots that result from operating next to an uneven distribution.
In his last two seasons in Miami, he has made the fewest attempts per game of his career. He became obsessed with efficiency, especially in 2012-13, the second year of the championship. Look at all that red organized. It's essentially a masterpiece:
James was released from being the center of the offense. He learned to play ball. He has learned to be more selective and more intentional with his selection of moves. It was a luxury to play in a great team. Sometimes, the effectiveness depends as much on the player's environment as on his individual abilities.
As its number reached new heights, those studying James were the most gifted on the confluence of reduced use, increased efficiency and a hyper-intelligent shooting selection. See what Brian Windhorst of ESPN wrote in May 2013, after James won his fourth MVP award:
"Less bad shots, more good shots, more attempts from places where he learned that he was good at defensive strategies, less strategies against strategies designed to make him take on bad decisions. (…) or the result of a group of dunks.It was so much deeper.It was James who was applying his understanding of a decade in the NBA and merged with his talent. "
We've covered you before, during and after the Lakers first game in Portland.
Is Giannis ready to be MVP? Will the Lakers play in the playoffs? What is the fall of Jimmy Butler? There are many questions to answer this season.
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The LeBron peak is manifested when his brain, his body and his playing situation all lined up in Miami. After years of mediocre or average 3-point shooter, it's here that James finally managed to get good results in depth. This improvement says as much about the cleanliness of his attempts as his ability to shoot 3 °. In 2012-13, 55% of her triples were assisted. Last year in Cleveland, only 36% were there.
And while he will never be able to match Stephen Curry thoroughly, it may not matter. James's domestic statistics are as staggering as the prowess of Curry's perimeter.
Consider this: During the 2008-2009 to 2017-18 season, James was six times the NBA's top scorer in the restricted zone, including last season when he converted an impressive 534 goals in this critical area. This is not only the largest number of LeBron's careers, but no player has scored so many points since Shaq, a MVP player, scored 571 in 1999-2000. At the time, everyone knew that Shaq was the best indoor scorer on the planet. But since 10 years, this title belongs to James:
This does not mean that James can not generate a lot of perimeter breaches. In fact, it's one of his best skills.
Another type of specialist in 3 points
One of the ways that James overcame his relative mediocrity as a sniper is his ability as a creator. He is undoubtedly the best assistant in 3 points of the NBA.
Last season, James Harden led the NBA recording 265 points at 3 points. That's an important figure – this helped Harden win his first MVP – but James led the NBA helping on 344 3 points. Over the last five seasons, Curry has emerged as a new scorer, generating an incredible 1,485 3 points since the 2013-14 season. But in the same period, James the creator helped out 1,318 triples.
Everyone knows that James is a great smuggler. Few players attract as much attention as him. While the defenders tried to slow down his dribbling with assistants, James learned to punish these strategies by sending perfectly timed passes to the shooters that those defenders left open.
Defending James over the last ten years is like choosing a poison: either you let him explode and cover countless buckets at the edge, or you slow down his inner attacks with the help of the defense and allow him to do good figure for his teammates. The Cavs and Heat have done well to face James with formidable threats that could make defenses pay by leaving the guys open on the edges. You do not give up Kyle Korver or Ray Allen in the corner. This opened driving lanes for James to score at the edge.
As James enters his 16th year in the NBA, it is fair to wonder if this new group of teammates will allow him to extend his legacy as top scorer in the domestic league or top scorer in the league.
Last season in Cleveland, more than half of his 3-point assists were awarded to three very good marksmen: five-time All-Star Kevin Love, the very talented JR Smith and the very precise Korver. They are stuck in Cleveland, and it is unclear whether this assembled list in L.A. has enough firepower at its perimeter to take advantage of James' unique creative abilities. In turn, defenses might be able to devote more resources to helping James slow down the driver.
Here is an important question at the beginning of the 2018-2019 season: what will happen when this type of pass will fall into the hands of his new teammates?
A dose of pessimism is justified. It's not encouraging that during the pre-season, the most active 3-point shooters of the Lakers – Kyle Kuzma, Josh Hart, Kentavious Caldwell-Pope and Svi Mykhailiuk combined their efforts to make only 28% of their 81 attempts at 3 points, while the entire team only achieved 32.6%. Even so, pre-season samples are both small and fragmentary, chemistry takes time and if we've learned anything about James since 2003-2004, it's that he's the rising tide that lifts all boats.
The question is not whether the Lakers will get better. They go obviously. The question is how will they get better. Last season, they had the 23rd most effective offensive of the NBA, in part because they were part of the worst long-distance shooting teams. This must change, and there may be no better way to improve this number than to hand over the keys of the offense to the king's clear looks.
Ultimately, the degree of improvement depends largely on the ability of a group of untested snipers to shoot long-range shots. If KCP, Kuzma and Hart can empty their 3, this crazy experience could actually work. If they can not, Rob Pelinka, Magic and General Manager LeBron will have to find ways to provide James with peripheral threats that can.
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