LABron James Discussion: Personal Time

lol exactly what i was saying after the game last night--begging for someone to write the "should steph demand a trade to the lakers?" piece, if only in jest. i want the full cap gymnastics and everything. i want reporters to ask him about it before their next game.

smug mfers. they are in TROUBLE over there. you want to know how i know? because i've been watching our team for the past three years while i've also been watching theirs! i know this boat. i'm on it. but so are you. annoying that the media just relentlessly trashes the lakers, rob, jeanie, etc. and completely lets gs/lacob/dunleavy, etc. off the hook. especially after all the crowing they did during their little mini-dynasty. so. much. crowing.

well, both your timelines are up, joe!

 

The Lakers have been worse with LeBron James on the court

LeBron has already accomplished one he'd prefer to reverse: For the first time since James' rookie season in 2003-04, his team is worse while he's on the court than when he's not.

It's well-understood that plus-minus metrics can be noisy, as they're often influenced by the many players who share the court, but the Lakers' performance when James plays without Anthony Davis (minus-12.1 points per 100 possessions) is perhaps the most illustrative -- and problematic. It represents a whopping reversal of 17 points per 100 possessions from last season. In Monday's loss to the Pistons, for instance, Los Angeles was a plus-17 in the James-Davis minutes, but a minus-18 in the minutes James played without his fellow star.

James is a minus-107 overall, the NBA's second worst among those who play for a team that would be in the postseason if the season ended today. (Only Denver wing Julian Strawther, at minus-117, had a lower plus-minus heading into the Christmas games.) That makes for a stark contrast from the plus-218 James logged last season or the plus-214 he posted in 2022-23.

The bottom line is this: The 17-13 Lakers have been 8.7 points worse per 100 possessions with James on the court than they've been with him off. That huge net-rating gap is equivalent to the one between the 14-14 Wolves and the 7-22 Charlotte Hornets.

https://www.espn.com/nba/story/_/id/43126881/nba-themes-watch-christmas-lebron-jokic-wemby-defense

 

LOL my eye test tells me he’s still useful ya know?

 

my eye test has said for two years what the numbers are now supporting (exaggerating, probably). he's just lost enough steps and regular season motivation that he's not always a net positive.

but i do think the numbers are probably doing some of the things they've done to AD in prior years--he's suffering from a coach using him in lineups where he's the lone guy propping it up, and his advanced stats look bad as a result. we're not actually better without him.

now the numbers did NOT lie about westbrook. we were better with him just...not.

 

And his plus minus after the break is back to being good. He was legit bad for a stretch which is unusual for him but he been really good since.

Is he the same player he once was no but over the last 5 games you would ask who the best player in either the Lakers or the team they played it would probably be James

 

true. prior to the week off, he was actively bad, and he has been largely good since.

 

I actually couldn’t care less regarding plus/minus on a team that is incomplete.
That being said, up until recently, LeBron’s poor defense has been a real issue. For me, most of that is the not getting back while the opponent is breaking because it’s the one thing that solely is based on effort.