LeBron James and Perfectionism

Hi, I’m John. I started this site back in 2008. (I like the name I chose, although I have forever branded this as a “blog.” It was that or Good News for People Who Like Cavs News, which, while I love it, is a bit of an insular reference, and I’m also not much of a Modest Mouse fan.) Since then, I’ve graduated college, worked for Congress, moved boxes professionally, written for NBC, SLAM, ESPN, and the New York Times’ basketball blog, graduated law school and, most recently, worked for the Miami Heat, which meant I had to sell the website to Tom Pestak, who was the first other writer I hired, and refrain from writing about basketball while I worked there. The last season I wrote full-time for this website was the 2010-11 season, so if you remember me, congratulations.

Now I’m back, and I thought I’d start things off by taking a look at the team’s Big 3, starting with LeBron James, who is currently the starting small forward for the Cleveland Cavaliers.

During my hiatus from writing about basketball, I got obsessed with videos like the one above — videos breaking down shooting mechanics, dribble-moves, and the other mechanical minutia that make up an NBA players skill-set. I can now talk about triple 90s, set points, one-motion vs. two-motion shooting, tilt shooting, the Chicago 1-2-3 crossover vs. the outside-the-box shake, and a bunch of other stuff at length and feel nothing but the sheer pleasure of nerding out about the NBA.

This brings us to LeBron James, whose shot is a bit of a mess. This was easy to overlook when his 3-point percentages were average to above-average from 08-09 to 2014-15, especially considering he took a high proportion of his 3s off the dribble. The form may not have been textbook, but neither were Reggie Miller’s, Larry Bird’s, Dirk Nowitzki’s, Peja Stojakovic’s…the list goes on.

Last season, LeBron shot 30.9% from beyond the arc, and he’s currently sitting at 25.9%. Even when LeBron gets an open catch-and-shoot or defenses go way under the pick-and-roll, he’s been unable to punish teams. And, as always, when you look at LeBron’s free-throw percentage, it’s mediocre, and everyone is wide open at the free throw line.

The caveat here is that it’s early, and some things will normalize — Steph Curry and Klay Thompson aren’t going to end the season shooting 35% and 19% from the 3-point line. For the record, I think there’s a good chance LeBron’s outside shot will come around — he seems more confident in it than he was last year, more interested in finding open looks, and seems to be shooting with a more stable base when he has the opportunity to. And I should mention that LeBron James is impossibly skilled for a man of his size and athleticism, and is currently 1.2 rebounds per game off of averaging a triple-double. Still, these are the things I obsess over.

Question #1: Could LeBron’s jump shot be more mechanically sound?

The fundamental question: are great shooters born, or are they made? To some point, it’s obviously the latter — there’s nothing hardwired in the human body that, when given a basketball and told to put it through a 10-foot high hoop 20-30 feet away, makes us instinctively keep our elbow in, get set at a triple-90 point, and smoothly follow through using the power coming from our base to guide the ball through the hoop. Next time you go to a pickup game, check out the form on the average person’s jumper. It’s not a pretty thing to watch.

The more pertinent question, then, is this: by the time a player shows NBA potential, which is typically sometime at the age of 16 or 17 at the earliest, is it already too late to completely overhaul his jump shot? At this point, the player will have already developed some sort of fundamental mechanics that feel comfortable to him. Is it possible to wipe the slate clean and build a shot from the ground up, or are tweaks in the right direction the only option that remains?

I lean more towards the latter, possibly because I am a card-carrying LeBron apologist, but then there are things like this.

“This was the overgrown kid whose friends often teased him about his big ears, the often quirky player whose unorthodox free-throw shooting style — arms extended straight up above his head in follow-through, eyes following the arc of the ball instead of focusing on the rim like most shooters would — left his cousin Maverick mystified that those free throws ever went in.”

-Ryan Jones, King James: Believe the Hype!

That quote is from a book written from a SLAM writer who followed LeBron through his high school career. Here are all the perimeter players to ever win league MVP, and their career FT% percentages:

Steph Curry: 90.1%

Kevin Durant: 88.2%

LeBron James: 74.4%

Derrick Rose: 81.4%

Kobe Bryant: 83.7%

Steve Nash: 90.4%

Allen Iverson: 78.0%

Michael Jordan: 83.5%

Magic Johnson: 84.8%

Larry Bird: 88.6%

Julius Erving: 77.7%

Bob Cousy: 80.3%

Yep, that’s LeBron on the bottom of the list. Two things stick out to me here (I’ve gone on at length about this before): LeBron wasn’t a good free throw shooter in high school, and his best friends saw that his free-throw stroke was weird. How did someone not take him aside and say “Hey, LeBron, you’re 16 and already have the inside track to be the #1 overall pick. Maybe it’s time to overhaul that free-throw stroke. You might lose some high school and AAU games, but considering you’re going to have an extensive NBA career, this will definitely help in the long run.”

Second, it is now on the record that LeBron is diligent about keeping himself at peak condition — he spends 1.5 million dollars a year on his body. So given that he’s clearly willing to invest considerable time and resources into keeping himself at his best in the era of shot doctors, YouTube best practices, balls that beep when you shoot them with perfect backspin, and everything else, how is it possible that he is a worse free throw shooter than Bob Cousy, who literally was a smoker? LeBron is out there sleeping in cryogenic chambers and still can’t shoot free throws as well as Bob Cousy and Tom Heinsohn, the latter of whom smoked a pack a day. I will say here that free throw percentage has stayed constant throughout the history of the NBA, but I have no earthly idea how.

I want to believe that LeBron’s shooting mechanics are as refined as they can be given his size, athleticism, and the innate bad habits he came in with. When asked about Marion’s shot, his coach at UNLV said “you should have seen what it looked like when he got here.” I know for a fact that Joakim Noah’s shot was “fixed” when he was in high school. (He used to heave it up from his hip.) Mark Price worked with Rajon Rondo on his free throws. The results didn’t come. Legendary shooting coach Dave Hopla (who preaches “10 toes towards the rim — something most shooting coaches disagree with now) is a Pistons employee. Andre Drummond still can’t hit a free throw to save his life. Here’s a clip of KD playing a high school game — that’s the same perfect, quick-release jumper we’ve come to know him for.

Meanwhile, LeBron James’ high school stroke was this…thing. (Skip to the 1:00 mark.)

There’s not a lot of precedent for someone to come into the league with a jump shot that broken and turn into an effective weapon from the perimeter. (In fairness to LeBron, he made 38% of his 3s his senior year — it wasn’t until he got to the NBA it became clear he needed major fixes to be a passable jump shooter.) Should it have been torn down right there? Could it have been? I don’t know. Every professional golfer hits their drive with nobody guarding them off a stationary tee, and no two of them have the exact same swing. However, no PGA pro makes the tour in spite of their swing — the same can’t be said for NBA players and their jump shots.

The maddening thing about LeBron and his jump shot is the lack of knowledge. We know that LeBron, like every NBA player, works on his jump shot by taking practice shots, at the very least. Does it go beyond that? Who coaches him on his shooting? Does he look at his shot on tape? Has he tried more “traditional” mechanics on his jump shot and found that his discomfort with them offsets their theoretical superiority? When was the last time he considered his mechanics? The reason a person can’t do something is because they’re not working hard enough, they’re not working correctly, or they’re incapable of doing it. Which of the three is the case with LeBron barely making 30% of his 3s last year? Simply put, is this jump shot, mechanically speaking, the best jump shot that LeBron James’ can be? If not, why isn’t it? I don’t know the answers to these questions, and it’s why I howl at my TV every time a LeBron James jumpshot goes astray.

Question #2: Does any of this matter? 

Here we come to, in synecdoche, the conundrum of writing about a team that is considered a virtual lock to win the Eastern Conference in November. On a game-to-game basis, of course a franchise player’s ability to knock down a jump shot matters. Ty Lue has already busted out some sets designed to get LeBron open looks from behind the arc. If LeBron could make defenders close out on the fear of that shot, can you imagine how many lanes would open up for the rest of the team, not to mention the ability for LeBron to go backdoor? When things break down, the team goes to LeBron as the point guard, and usually gives him a pick. Wouldn’t it be just lovely if LeBron could punish teams for diving under the pick, or hurt a switch at the free throw line with a cute little pull-up?

Or if LeBron could break the offense out of cold spells by simply firing a few jump shots over a defense packing the paint and turning a scary 6-point lead back into a healthy 12-point one? (For what it’s worth, LeBron looking to be a passer out of the post this season rather than being aggressive down there has been just as much of an issue — the team has unveiled a couple of nice sets to get LeBron good matchups on the block, but he’s been waiting for the double-team so he can kick out instead of making the strong move — so far, he’s 4-10 from the post this season.)

Then again, there’s all of this: The Cavs spent most of the regular season last year running nothing resembling an offense, while the Warriors modernized the triangle, moved the ball beautifully with perfect spacing, and had the best offense of all time. When push came to shove in Game 7, it came down to pure one-on-one hero ball. Steph Curry, the best shooter of all time, went 4-14 from 3. When LeBron won his 2nd championship in 2013, he went 4-9 from midrange and 5-10 from 3. Kevin Durant, who’s currently draining threes, crossing people up, destroying guys in the post, and generally looking like the most complete scorer of all time for the Warriors right now, went a combined 22-64 in games 5 and 6 against the Warriors, and spent crunch time of game 6 desperately lacking a go-to move to seal the game with. Do I have standing to question LeBron’s jump shot when it’s come through from him on the biggest possible stage? The long jumper is an inherently fickle mistress — look no further than Steph Curry following up an 0-10 performance from beyond the arc with a record-breaking 13 threes last night. (Again, this is why I’m on team “LeBron should get himself going in the post rather than trying to shoot his way into a scoring groove.” We’re searching for a snazzier name.)

I don’t know the answers to these questions. On some level, to embrace LeBron is to accept imperfections. His 2011 Finals performance will always stain him more than any flying elbow ever could — if he had played anything like himself in that series, he’d be more or less the consensus #3 player in modern basketball history, behind only Michael and Kareem. (A lot of people really don’t understand how good Kareem was. If you don’t know, please educate yourself.) Embracing LeBron’s flawed jumper is part and parcel of loving the rest of his game, the one that’s netted him 4 MVPs and 3 Finals MVPs in two cities, with one of those cities being Cleveland. Deep down, I know that’s the bargain I have to make — I’m just not willing to yet. That’s why I’ll feel that temporary feeling of bliss the next time LeBron knocks down a long jumper, convinced that he’s finally got his jumper all figured out.

P.S. — LeBron sealed the crowning moment of his career by splitting a pair of free throws. It doesn’t get more fitting than that. Not perfect, but enough for greatness.