The unfair assassination of LeBron James’ MVP case

LeBron’s defense

Anyone with at least one eye open this year has noticed that LeBron takes a lot of possessions off defensively. He’s been doing it ever since his final season in Miami. But is that really any different from what the other stars around the league do?

To further explain, I’m going to split the superstars of the league into three categories: those with immense offensive responsibility, those with limited offensive responsibility, and those who are still very young.

Young superstars have an immense amount of energy and have bodies more capable of the night-to-night recovery required to maintain high effort throughout an 82-game season. They also lack the perspective gained from long playoff runs. It allows them to see the importance of being fresh come playoff time.

This is why guys like Giannis Antetokounmpo and Anthony Davis play MVP defense on a random February night in Memphis.

It’s why LeBron used to do this to Monte Ellis:

In the case of stars like Kevin Durant, Steph Curry, Kawhi Leonard — or even this year’s eventual MVP winner, James Harden because of Chris Paul’s help — they carry a disproportionately low offensive burden compared to some of their peers. This allows them to allocate more of their energy resources to the defensive end.

This leaves us with the last group: the superstars who are required to carry their teams on the offensive end. This particular season this group is really limited to LeBron himself but I am going to use last year’s MVP as an example.

Russell Westbrook was terrible defensively last year. According to NBA.com’s advanced tracking, no player contested fewer shots last year among players playing at least 30 minutes per game. By a considerable margin.

[Editor’s note: 47 players playing at least 30 minutes per game have contested fewer shots than LeBron, 48 players have contested more.]

Nobody used this argument against Russ. Why? Because we understood his predicament. His team couldn’t score without him. The Thunder’s offensive rating without Russ on the floor last year would rank three points worse than this year’s worst offense — the Phoenix Suns.

This is the position that LeBron currently finds himself in.

Given the limited amount of talent on Cleveland’s roster, LeBron has made a calculated decision. His team has a better chance to win if he conserves his energy at times on the defensive end. That’s the irony of using defensive effort as a slight against LeBron. He knows they’re better off the way things are.

Plus, LeBron remains one of the top two or three defenders in the league when he actually is engaged. He’s shown it at times again this season. In the playoffs — like last year — he will continue to do things like this: