Why the Lakers should keep LeBron James
This season LeBron James is averaging 28 PPG, 9 RPG, and 8 APG. He’s one rebound and 2 assists shy of averaging a 28-point triple-double for the season. How could any team trade away a player putting up those kind of raw numbers?
Continuing on, LeBron’s advanced stats from www.basketball-reference.com might show that this has been a down year for “The King,” but according to www.espn.com’s Real Plus-Minus statistic, LeBron’s has a 5.52 rating, which is good for 6th in the NBA. LeBron James is also 7th in the NBA in ESPN’s Player Efficiency Rating (PER) at 26.06 and www.nba.com’s Player Impact Estimate (PIE) has James as the 5th best player in the NBA for the year.
Dan Devine was correct when he said that according to www.nba.com’s tracking tool, LeBron James has been the 3rd slowest player on defense (minimum 10 minutes per game) for the season. What Devine failed to mention is that some of the best basketball players in the NBA sit right along James at the bottom of the defensive speed statistics.
Here’s a list of some of the players who fill out the bottom 40 spots in www.nba.com’s defensive speed tracking tool (minimum 10 MPG):
- James Harden (all-star, MVP)
- Chris Paul (9-time former all-star)
- Russell Westbrook (all-star, former MVP)
- Blake Griffin (all-star)
- Kevin Durant (all-star, finals MVP)
- Draymond Green (former all-star, former Defensive Player of the Year, 2018 All-NBA Defensive Second Team)
- Joel Embiid (all-star, 2018 NBA All- Defensive Second Team)
- Kyle Lowry (all-star)
- Damian Lillard (all-star)
- Kemba Walker (all-star)
- Anthony Davis (all-star, 2018 NBA All-Defensive First Team)
LeBron James was slow on defense this year, but as I mentioned above, many of the best basketball players in the NBA were also “deliberate” on the less glamorous side of the ball. Draymond Green, Joel Embiid, and Anthony Davis are three of the best defenders in the NBA, so it’s clear to see that defensive speed isn’t necessarily an indicator of a player’s worth on D, nor does it really show that LeBron is slowing down because of age.
Luke Walton has a .393 winning percentage as the head coach of the Lakers over the last three seasons. LeBron James’s teams made it to the NBA finals eight seasons in a row, winning 3 championships.
Does LeBron James really need to heed to a head coach who’s won so little? There’s a good chance that LeBron knows more about the game than Luke, so it’s probably hard for him to listen to a coach who hasn’t even been able to lead his team to the playoffs.
Luke Walton has been Mike D’Antoni’s doppelganger over the last couple of seasons, but instead of only focusing on offense, he’s chosen to center 80 to 90 percent of Lakers practices on defense.
Only a few games into this NBA season, Magic Johnson was so infuriated at the Lakers lack of any type of offensive plan that he yelled and cursed at Luke during a practice session, because he hadn’t implemented anything close to an NBA level offensive system. It’s clear to see that LeBron isn’t the only one in the Lakers organization who doesn’t have much respect for Walton.
Given that Luke never really installed a coherent offense, and going off the lead that Magic Johnson set early in the season, it’s no wonder LeBron stopped listening to Luke’s play calls during games and that he’s had no interest in joining the in-game huddles run by the Lakers young coach.