LeBron explains how he transformed himself into a ruthlessly
efficient scoring machine
By Kirk Goldsberry on March 29, 2013
Just a few months after his 28th birthday, LeBron James is
on the brink of his fourth NBA MVP award, joining an elite club of four-time
winners restricted to Wilt Chamberlain, Michael Jordan, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar,
and Bill Russell. But since winning his first MVP in 2008-09, LeBron's game has
evolved drastically. He's a vastly different player now than the one he was in
2011. In fact, each year he's won the MVP, he's done so in a distinctive way.
LeBron is a basketball scientist and his game is his laboratory; his ongoing
research is returning brilliant results in awestruck gymnasiums from Boston to
Los Angeles to London.
But James is not only the NBA's most valuable player, he is
also the league's most versatile player. We can clearly see that LeBron is
great at basketball, but we're less astute when it comes to identifying the
radical shifts in his game over time. I spoke to James in Miami after the Heat
beat the Detroit Pistons, their 25th consecutive win. When I asked him what he
thought the biggest change in his game has been since his rookie season, he
immediately honed in on his scoring. His first word says it all.
"Efficiency. I'm just a more efficient player. I take
no shots for granted. When you're a young player, you cast up low-percentage
shots, and you're not really involved with the numbers as much as far as field
goal percentage and things of that nature. As I've grown, I've made more of a
conscious effort to become a more efficient player and I think it's helped my
team's success over the years."
In James's rookie year he shot 42 percent from the field and
29 percent from beyond the arc. This year those numbers are 56 percent and 39
percent, respectively. There are two reasons for that substantial improvement
in his field goal percentage: (1) He's a much better shooter now, and (2) also
a larger share of his shots are close to the basket now.
James won the NBA MVP in each of his last two seasons in
Cleveland.
In James's last season in Cleveland his shot chart resembles
that of a point guard. James was very
active in front of the basket and along both wings, where his game featured a
lot of off-the-dribble 3s and long 2s. Although he shot 50 percent from the
field, there was virtually no post game, and aside from a cluster at the rim,
there wasn't much activity close to the basket. He was perimeter-oriented.
In his first year in a Heat uniform, James took fewer 3s and
was much more active in the paint, but he was still spending a lot of time away
from the basket. His early Miami patterns were similar to his Cleveland
patterns: no hint of a post game; too many long 2s; his game was still too
perimeter-oriented. And after losing the 2011 NBA Finals, James and coach Erik
Spoelstra were more determined than ever to tweak their offensive approach.
In the last game of the 2011 Finals, James was almost
listlessly loitering beyond the arc, hesitating, shying away, and failing to
take advantage of his freakish stature. His last shot of those Finals was symbolic:
an ill-fated 25-foot jump shot from the outskirts of the right wing — his
favorite 3-point shot location that season. The next morning, newspapers and
blogs didn't forget to remind us that James wasn't a clutch player. Although
few would admit to it now, countless media personalities took the opportunity
to opine that LeBron James simply didn't have "what it takes" to win
championships in this league.
But something was about to change.
That loss, and maybe some of those demeaning
characterizations, fueled one of the greatest and most important
transformations in recent sports history. James was distraught, but somehow
channeled that into ferocious dedication to his craft. Spoelstra was perplexed
and desperate to correct course; he told me, "Shortly after our loss to
Dallas in the Finals, LeBron and I met. He mentioned that he was going to work
on his game relentlessly during the offseason, and specifically on his post-up
game. This absolutely made sense for us. We had to improve offensively, and one
of the best ways would be to be able to play inside-out with a post-up
attack."
It's no secret where and when James first worked on his
low-post game. Fueled by that loss to the Mavs, he went to Houston in the
summer of 2011 to learn from a master: Hakeem Olajuwon.
"I wanted to get better," James said of his
decision to work with Olajuwon. "I wanted to improve and I sought out
someone who I thought was one of the greatest low-post players to ever play
this game. I was grateful and happy that he welcomed me with open arms; I was
able to go down to Houston for four and a half days; I worked out twice a day;
he taught me a lot about the low post and being able to gain an advantage on
your opponent. I used that the rest of the offseason, when I went back to my
hometown. Every day in the gym I worked on one thing or I worked on two things
and tried to improve each and every day."
Translating new moves developed in offseason workouts into
actual in-game NBA improvements is deceptively difficult. James knew that
working on practice moves in the gym was only half the battle.
"The biggest thing isn't how much you work on things,
it's 'Can you work on something, then implement it into a game
situation?'" James says. "Can you bring what you've worked on so much
and put it out on the floor with the finished product? I was happy that I was
able to do that and make that transformation."
After his summer workouts, James checked in with Spoelstra
to let him know about his summer project. "Spo and I had a conversation. I
told him how hard I worked on my low-post game. I knew we needed low-post
scoring; we were more of a perimeter-oriented team my first year here, the year
we lost the Finals, and I knew I had to get better, and in order for us to get
better we had to be more efficient in the low post, so I took that
approach."
It worked. James emerged from that summer transformed.
"When he returned after the lockout, he was a totally different
player," Spoelstra says. "It was as if he downloaded a program with
all of Olajuwon's and Ewing's post-up moves. I don't know if I've seen a player
improve that much in a specific area in one offseason. His improvement in that
area alone transformed our offense to a championship level in 2012."
James's shot selection in the 2011-12 campaign was
completely different, and completely dominant. For the first time in his
career, his game was heavily asymmetric. James spent a lot more time on the
left side of the court than the right, especially down on the left block, a
spot that he now refers to as his "sweet spot." He took fewer 3s and
spent most of his time closer to the basket. Good things happen for Miami when
James is in the post and near the basket. Not only is he his team's leading
scorer, he's its best passer and its best rebounder. LeBron's migration to the
left block not only helped his scoring efficiency, it opened up space elsewhere
for spot-up shooters like Shane Battier. When you study his most common shot
locations before and after the Hakeem trip, it's almost like you're looking at
two different players.
It's not hard to find people around the Heat who will tell
you that the summer following that Finals loss to Dallas is what transformed
James from a runner-up into a champion. Up through those 2011 Finals, James had
yet to fully take advantage of his size and the inherent matchup nightmares he
brings to every game. Battier says James is far better at exploiting that fact
now.
"He understands that he's got a physical mismatch
pretty much every night, and the best place to take advantage of that is on the
block," he says. "He's worked at that. Scoring on the block is not a
right in this league, you have to have a game down there, and he's worked on
that. Now he's got a few moves that are really tough to stop down there."
The 2011 trip to Houston, and subsequent adjustments,
obviously worked. The Heat beat the Thunder in the Finals, and LeBron was named
the MVP of both the regular season and the Finals. But James wasn't satisfied.
He recommitted himself to improving even more in the summer of 2012. This
season, LeBron still loves the left block, but he's also introduced a few more
tricks.
This season he's back to shooting 3s and fewer midrange
shots.
"You know, I changed. I didn't shoot many 3s last year,
I kind of played more in the post, and more in the midrange, but I felt like I
worked on 3s enough this past offseason that I could make another change — and
the least efficient shot in our game is the midrange shot — so I thought maybe
I could move it out, improve my 3-point shooting, continue to work on my
low-post scoring, and then leave the midrange to be my next journey."
James told me that when he was working on his 3s, he'd
punish himself until he met a lofty set of self-enforced shooting milestones.
"It's work," James says. "It's a lot of work.
It's being in workouts, and not accomplishing your goal, and paying for it. So,
if I get to a spot in a workout and want to make eight out of 10, if I don't
make eight of 10, then I run. I push myself to the point of exhaustion until I
make that goal. So you build up that mentality that you got to make that shot
and then use that in a game situation — it's the ultimate feeling, when you're
able to work on something and implement it."
Last year James achieved that ultimate feeling by developing
and implementing that left-block game. This season he's doing it with his
much-improved long-range shot and his continued dominance attacking the basket
and finding open shooters. "Our team is built around perimeter attacking,
getting to the rim, and when guys clog up the paint, we're able to kick it out
for 3s."
James is also a very good passer. LeBron's dominance near the basket forces
defenses to collapse in upon him, which opens up shots along the perimeter. The
Heat decorate the perimeter with some of the league's most elite spot-up
shooters, including Ray Allen and Battier. James is highly aware of the
whereabouts of these teammates, and he's always cognizant of who might be open
where and when. As a result, he commonly fires long passes to spot-up shooters
in the corners as soon as he notices a collapsing defender.
The reintegration of his own 3-point shot is justified in
part by James's newfound comfort. He's shooting 39 percent from 3-point range
this season, far and away the highest such mark in his career. In Cleveland,
James was frequently forced to create his own shot and rarely had good
catch-and-shoot chances. That's different now.
Simply put, LeBron James remains both the NBA's most
valuable and its most versatile player. He is acutely aware of his own game and
his team's strategy. He continues to find new ways to integrate his own
evolving talents with those of his teammates, and he makes everyone better in
the process. While it's simple to label James a physical freak with outrageous
basketball talents, that sells his progress, work ethic, and intelligence
short. LeBron James is a basketball nerd who just happens to possess
once-in-a-generation talent.
LEBRON TRAINING WITH HAKEEM
