Will LeBron James break out of his shooting slump?

LeBron James is in a slump, but it’s certainly nothing too unfamiliar for the King.

LeBron James is having one of his most impressive seasons in his 15th year in the league. He is averaging 27.5 points, 9.1 rebounds, and 8.1 assists per game on a career-best effective field-goal percentage of 61.0%.

As a result, James has been named Eastern Conference Player of the Month every month this season and is the front-runner for MVP with James Harden sidelined with a hamstring strain.

One of the reasons he has been so successful this season is the consistency of his jump shot. If there ever was a weakness in James’s scoring, it was his jumper. More specifically his three-point shot. For years defenses would try to make LeBron beat them with his jump shot.

Besides the 2012-13 season when he shot 40.6% from three, James has not been able to consistently punish teams for this strategy. As a result, he has shot 34.3% from distance during his career.

LeBron started the season shooting the best he had in his career. He tweaked his jumper a bit during the summer and is now releasing the ball higher than he has in the past. Through December 12th, James was shooting 42.2% from three on 4.8 attempts per game.

LeBron was nearly unguardable during that stretch. Teams could no longer play off of him and force him into jump shots without paying the price. This led to arguably his best scoring numbers despite a career low in free-throw attempts per game.

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Many have been waiting for LeBron’s shooting to regress back to his career average, but the improved form gave rise to the idea that his improved shooting was here to stay. However, the last ten games have shown that his shooting may have been just a mirage.

Since December 14th, James is shooting just 28.8% from distance on 5.2 attempts per game. Despite the stretch, James is still posting a career-best effective field goal percentage of 61.0% and his second-best three-point shooting percentage of 38.3%.

LeBron has also attempted slightly more threes per game during the recent ten game stretch. He is attempting 5.2 threes per game compared to 4.8 to start the season. Despite the increase in attempts, it doesn’t appear that James has been overconfident and settling for ill-advised jumpers. James went from attempting 3.4 pull up threes per game for 41.1% to attempting 3.3 per game on 30.3%.

What’s alarming about LeBron’s regression is the fact it doesn’t appear to be the result of defenses playing him differently or settling for bad shots. He is settling for good, open shots, the shots just aren’t going in like they were to start the season.

James is shooting 4.3 open or wide open threes per game during this ten game stretch compared to 4.2 open or wide open threes per game at the beginning of the season. The difference is he’s missing them now. James went from shooting 54.8% on wide open threes to begin the season to shooting just 28.6% on wide open threes the past ten games. He also dipped in percentage on open threes from shooting 36.8% to 31.8%.

There are ebbs and flows throughout the NBA season. It’s inevitable. Even the best shooters in the league go through slumps. However, it is something to be skeptical about considering how LeBron has never really been a consistent three-point shooter in his career.

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Whether or not LeBron captures his fifth MVP could depend on whether he regains his shot. We’ll just have to wait and see.

*All stats gathered from stats.nba.com