Despite Recent Success, LeBron Still Showing No Love

It seems like ages ago when the consummation of the Cleveland Cavaliers’ newly-formed “Big Three” — featuring Kyrie Irving, the acquisition of Kevin Love, and the return of the state’s favorite son, LeBron James — was officially finalized.

The trio were supposed to blend seamlessly, as all three possess a diverse set of on-court skills that inherently complement the modern style of pace-and-space basketball. Basketball purists salivated at the thought of a LeBron-Love PNR (pick-and-roll). There were even a segment of brave prognosticators that anticipated a Cavalier-offense that would challenge the NBA’s slew of post-merger offensive efficiency records.

However, earlier on during the season, what sounded ideal in theory did not carry over in actual practice.

Most notably, the Cavaliers would stumble out of the gates, beginning the season with an 8-7 record by the end of November. What was most concerning, though, was the lack of creativity and weakside movement within the Cavs’ offensive scheme.

For one thing, Cleveland’s offensive sets look and feel eerily similar to the Cavaliers’ offenses of years past; explicitly, during LeBron’s preceding stint with the organization. For the most part, Mo Williams have been replaced by Kyrie Irving, Zydrunas Ilguaskas by Kevin Love, and Mike Brown by David Blatt.

Cleveland Cavaliers Circa 2008-09

Déjà Vu, Present Day Cleveland Cavaliers

Consequently, the Cavs’ offense often languishes into a stream of LeBron/Kyrie isolations, leaving Love in the corner to play the role of a glorified Channing Frye. Although, off of pure talent alone, the Cavs were still able to produce a highly-respectable offensive rating of 107.5 — which ranked Cleveland as the sixth best offensive team during the month of November, per NBA.com — their assist percentage as a team, eFG% (effective field goal percentage), and TS% (true shooting percentage) were significantly lower than the other offenses within the top eight.

In addition, Cleveland’s defense has predictably struggled, ranking in the bottom half of the league in defensive efficiency. The chief culprits for their lackluster D remains to be Love, and surprisingly, Tristan Thompson.

In the case of Love, he is innately slow to contest shots, and his slender GQ-worthy frame causes him to get repeatedly abused when defending post-ups. Particularly, Love relents prime post-up position without much hostility, and often allows his man to crab dribble from the elbow extended area all the way to the front of the rim.

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His PNR and help defense is just as suspect. To elaborate, as the screener’s man, he usually allows too much separation between himself and the screener; thus, making him vulnerable for the split. Moreover, he’s often a step slow laterally; thereby, failing in his conquest to force the opposing ballhandler to the sideline and out of the middle.

As a help defender, Love actually does a solid job of getting into prime help position to effectively anticipate opponent straight line drives — in fact, he’s currently 11th in the league in charges taken. However, he resorts to reaching and stunting, instead of contesting, when placed in the role of rim protector.

Not surprisingly, opponents shoot over 55.9 percent at the rim when Love is patrolling the paint, per NBA.com. To make matters worse, Love’s lethargic closeouts often leave him exposed as the defender in pick-and-pop situations.

His defensive incompetency is worsened when paired with Thompson. Although highly energetic, Thompson lacks the prerequisite length needed to protect the rim with efficacy, especially when paired with Love. Additionally, he also has a bad habit of over-helping, consequently leaving the rest of the defense liable to breakdowns. For this reason, he is currently ranked 59th among centers in the NBA with a Defensive Real Plus/Minus (DRPM) of -0.22, per ESPN.

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After a similar brand of listless play over the subsequent month, the Cavaliers have seemed to turn things around — thanks in large part to a reinvigorated LeBron after recovering from an ailing knee and the acquisitions of Timofey Mozgov, J.R. Smith, and Iman Shumpert.

Most markedly, the Cavaliers have won eight straight games, including their previous victory over the Portland Trail Blazers without an injured James — spearheaded by the 55-point effort of Irving.

The addition of Mozgov has also shored up the Cavs’ interior woes, giving them the seven-foot rim intimidator beside Love they sorely lacked. To emphasize, Mozgov is one of only two Cavalier players to sport a Defensive Rating south of 100, with the other being Shumpert, who has only appeared in four games.

Likewise, over the past eight games, their current starting lineup of Irving, Smith, James, Love, and Mozgov has held teams to 95.5 points per 100 possessions and an eFG% of 45.2 percent, per NBA.com; an extravagant improvement from their season averages in Defensive Rating and opponent eFG% of 105.8 and 51.2 percent.

LeBron’s play has correspondingly gone to another level as well. Since returning from his knee ailment, he has averaged 30.5 points, 6.8 rebounds, 6.4 assists, and 2.0 steals per game on 59.4 TS% in the eight-game span in which the Cavs achieved a 7-1 record. In particular, LeBron has looked relatively like his old explosive self, as opposed to the heavy-legged languid James we saw at the start of the season.

In spite of LeBron’s and the Cavaliers’ fine play, the offense is still overtly iso-centric, often relying on the individual brilliance of LeBron and Kyrie to curate an adequate look off of a high PNR.

As a testament to LeBron’s, and to a certain extent, Kyrie’s greatness, Cleveland has been able to yield an Offensive Rating of 115.6 over the last nine contests, the best mark in the league over said stretch, per NBA.com.

However, they are also dead last during the same stretch in assist percentage. Comparatively, the streaking Atlanta Hawks have produced an assist rate of 73.8 percent, one-and-a-half times greater than the Cavs, over their last nine games.

When assessing the statistical production of LeBron, post-mini vacation, the Cavs’ potential offensive woes down the line become abundantly clear.

While James has a propensity to do things unconventionally, straying away from the “Michael Jordan” model — whether it’d be switching teams to win a title, passing up the game-winning shot, or refusing to conform to male pattern baldness — he has taken his rebelliousness to whole another level.

Where most superstars of the past, especially wings, have gotten stronger and moved their games closer towards the basket as they aged, James has done the exact opposite. After years of encouraging post play as a member of the Miami Heat, LeBron actually lost weight this summer in an effort to reclaim his ability to serve as a full-time point forward.

In fact, his usage rate and percentage of field goals made unassisted (FGM %UAST) has substantially spiked this season; hitting 2009-10 LeBron-Cavaliers levels since his return.

Sure enough, serving primarily as a ball dominant creator has congruently decreased his attempts and efficiency from 10-feet-and-in, as well as increase his rate of contested jumpshots; specifically when undertaking an attempt under the duress of a defender within four feet of him.

As well, his drives and points off of drives per game have accordingly increased when compared to last season.

More alarmingly, the discrepancy in touches between LeBron and Kyrie, when compared to Love, is stark and concerning. Specifically, both James and Irving average nearly 25 more touches per game than Love this season, per NBA.com.

Even more telling, Love has only averaged 3.2 elbow touches per game; comparatively, last season, he averaged over 11.6 elbow touches a game as a member of the Minnesota Timberwolves. Consequently, with the feel of consistent touches, Love averaged nearly 0.05 more points per touch during the 2013-14 campaign.

Simply put, at present, Love is nothing more than an above-average floor spacer who just so happens to be an elite rebounder. When comparing his numbers from this year to his two previous healthy seasons (excluding the 2012-13 campaign when Love only played 18 games), the drop in production across the board is quite astonishing.

Significantly, his percentage of shots from beyond the arc is at a career-high, while his attempts from 0-3 feet are at a career-low, per Basketball-Reference.

Accordingly, his catch-and-shoot opportunities have spiked, but his efficiency on such opportunities has inexplicably dipped. In fact, he is only scoring at an eFG% of 50.2 percent on catch-and-shoots this season; down from the 56.8 eFG% he produced during the year prior.

Notably, roughly 56.3 percent of Love’s shot attempts this season have been unimpeded, with the closest defender challenging from 4+ feet away, per NBA.com. In contrast, Love only took 47.9 percent of his shots under wide open circumstances last season.

While you wouldn’t expect Love to continue to misfire on such tasteful looks, his limited role within Cleveland’s offensive scheme, however, has effectively neutered Love of his greatest strengths; his passing and offensive rebounding. Not surprisingly, his usage rate, along with his assist and offensive rebound percentages, have dropped precipitously this season.

In turn, all of his advance metrics, from his PER to his win shares per 48 minutes has taken a deep nosedive this year; not to mention his per 36 minutes numbers, according to Basketball-Reference.

Don’t get me wrong, Love is a special, gifted offensive player; anyone who manages to average 17-10-and-2 in his current role has to be commended.

It is on LeBron, who has perpetually preached the need for everyone to “sacrifice,” to apply some of that wisdom onto himself.

For the Cavs to truly compete, they will need to evolve into the offensive juggernaut they were built and advertised to be — as opposed to their current brand of stagnate ball-watching basketball.

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Part of the reason why there was so much optimism surrounding the Cavs’ offense, before the season, had to do with the creativity of Blatt. Many envisioned the offense running through Love in the high post off of the bevy of horn sets in which Blatt was accustomed to running in Europe.

However, not only has Love gotten little to no high post touches, he and LeBron barely operate in the PNR game with one another. In fact, Love has served as the screener in only two of LeBron’s last 50 high PNR negotiations, per Synergy Sports.

In particular, LeBron often opts to run the high PNR with Mozgov or Thompson while Love spaces the floor in the opposite corner. Meanwhile, when Love does play the role of the screener, it is usually in side pick-and-pop set with Kyrie.

Of course, such woes can be easily remedied with the blessing of LeBron. In general, the Cavs make a concerted effort to involve Love during the first quarter of most games — mostly through post-ups off of a cross screen and pin-downs to set up an open catch-and-shoot opportunity.

But the key is to incorporate Love’s myriad of skills on the move through cuts and high post touches, particularly in the following ways:

• In horn sets, using Love as the high post initiator, and either LeBron or Kyrie as an off-ball cutter while running a dribble-handoff with the other — thereby, creating the floor spacing needed for open three-point looks and attacks towards the rim.
• Putting LeBron in the pinch post while Love sets a down screen for Kyrie on the strong side — thus creating a similar set of opportunities while involving all components of the Cavs’ Big Three.

In doing so, both LeBron and Kyrie will still receive their fair share of PNR opportunities while optimizing Love’s offensive repertoire. Furthermore, the big three’s scoring efficiency will surely improve with the quality looks both Love and LeBron will create as the initiator in the high post.

The ingredients are there, and the talent is indisputable; but for now, LeBron must put aside his own personal agenda, make the appropriate “sacrifices,” and show the Cavaliers some much needed Love.

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