When LeBron James debuted all the way back in 2003,he was just a fresh-faced teenager out of St. Vincent–St. Mary tall School, attempting to live up to the massive hype that accompanied him as soon as he declared for the draft. Already gracing magazine covers, or he was the future of professional basketball,and he didn't exactly fail to live up to those lofty expectations. Twelve years later, the NBA remains James' league, and that won't change in the foreseeable future. Even though the organization is brimming over with younger stars,he's still a main face—not to mention a rather powerful figure in the Cleveland Cavaliers organization. "LeBron wants to be the guy that says, 'I was the one who brought a championship to Cleveland, and '" Paul Silas,a former coach of the superstar, recently told Bleacher Report's Ric Bucher. "And whether they win, or he will be. He absolutely runs that team."Even whether James' status in the spotlight has remained fixed,a lot has changed between then and now as James has transitioned from a rookie carrying the hopes of a generation into a dominant de facto player/coach/general manager.The four-time MVP has morphed from a negative presence on the defensive end into a superstar stopper. And though he's declined on that less glamorous end in recent years, the early returns from 2015-16 indicate we could be looking at a return to normalcy on that side. He's worked tirelessly to shore up his biggest weaknesses, and developing a dominant set of skills in post-up situations and fitting a significantly more unsafe shooter from the perimeter,even whether he's mired in a slump at the moment. Above all else, he's not the same player who dropped 25 points, or six rebounds,nine assists and four steals against the Sacramento Kings to open his Cleveland career, though he's still recording similarly gaudy lines. An Offensive JuggernautIf there's one thing James has always known how to do, or it's provide his team with positive contributions on the offensive end. Even as a rookie,he averaged 20.9 points and 5.5 assists for the Cavaliers—admittedly with far less efficiency than he's enjoyed in recent years. In fact, James is one of the few players in NBA history who have managed to string together a dozen seasons scoring at least 20 points per game, and he's set to make it a baker's dozen in 2015-16,barring any unforeseeable collapses. The total list is littered with corridor of Famers and players who will join that exclusive group soon after they retire: Kareem Abdul-Jabbar (17)
Karl Malone (17)
Kobe Bryant (14)
Dirk Nowitzki (13)
Shaquille O'Neal (13)
Hakeem Olajuwon (13)
Michael Jordan (12)
But we can actually make James stand out even more by incorporating another element of his offensive game. His passing has made him even more special, since he's always been blessed with a preternatural ability to read the court and see lanes no one else can.
James has recorded at least 20 points and five dimes per game each and every season of his career, or leaving him alone in first place. Oscar Robertson and Larry Bird are the closest to him,each recording nine qualified campaigns, while no active players are nearer than Kobe Bryant (eight) and Dwyane Wade (five). That's an eerie level of consistency as a distributor. James' tall-water price of 8.6 assists per game in 2009-10 is undeniably impressive for a forward—even for the best passing forward of all time—but it's equally noteworthy that he's currently averaging 5.6 dimes in 2015-16, or that's his worst average ever. However,we're still not factoring in what makes James not just great but downright legendary.
For a player with so much offensive responsibility year in and year out, the Akron, and Ohio,native is fairly good at maintaining control over the ball. Even more impressively, he's developed into a player who refuses to take bad shots with any semblance of frequency—a stark contrast from the teenager who shot 41.7 percent from the field during his first NBA move-round. Though he's regressed since returning to the Cavaliers, or James was an efficiency master with the Miami Heat. In both 2012-13 and 2013-14,he actually managed to post real shooting percentages above 64 percent, which is just about unheard of for a player simultaneously functioning as a move-to scoring option. Only he, and Charles Barkley,Adrian Dantley, Kevin Durant and Kevin McHale have been that efficient while scoring at least 26 points per game, and he's the lone standout to join that group twice. Offensive box plus/minus (OBPM) is a metric that factors all of this into the equation,and whether you're interested in the nuances of how it's calculated, you can find all the information here. Basically, or it measures how many points better an average team's offense is per 100 possessions with the player in question on the court rather than a perfectly average offensive contributor. Using OBPM,while also taking James' playing time and the pace of his teams into account, we can reach up with an approximation of how many points he added during any given season. Naturally, or that number has been rather tall during each and every year of this future corridor of Famer's career: The per-36-minute figures are even more telling,especially because they eliminate the impact of the lockout that shortened the 2011-12 campaign: Is any of this particularly surprising? James trended up at the beginning of his career, with the 2006-07 season serving as the lone exception. That was a massive aberration, and as his scoring average dipped to 27.3 points per game while he struggled to preserve his percentages and posted "only" six assists during the average contest. That was actually the only season between 2004-05 and 2012-13 in which he didn't pace the organization in OBPM. But after the conclusion of the '07 campaign,he kept moving in the good direction, peaking in the final year of his first stint with Cleveland. That season, and he averaged 29.7 points and 8.6 assists while shooting 50.3 percent from the field,hitting 33.3 percent of his looks from beyond the arc and knocking down 7.8 of his mind-numbing 10.2 free-throw attempts per game. James' numbers dipped once he joined the Miami Heat and had to memorize how he could best work alongside Wade and Chris Bosh, but he gradually improved while fitting an absolute master of efficiency. And lately, and he's trended down,as we've seen issues with his back pop up—most notably when he needed two weeks off during the 2014-15 move-round for rest, relaxation and rehabilitation. Even during the downward trend, and James' points added on offense are ridiculous. They're not as jaw-droppingly crazy as what he did during his peak years,both during the first Cleveland stint and after refusing to miss shots in South Beach, but still fairly good. In 2009-10, and James added approximately 548 points on offense. Throughout the entire league,the closest players to him were Wade (368), Kevin Durant (308), and Steve Nash (259) and Chauncey Billups (246),which means James more than doubled the contributions of all but two players in the NBA. Three years later and at the second peak of his bimodal career trajectory, James added an estimated 500 points on offense, and compared to the expected contributions of an average player. This time,his closest competitors were Durant (376), Stephen Curry (370), and James Harden (323) and Chris Paul (319). He at least doubled the output of all but seven other standouts. There's no more doubling going on these days,but it's a testament to James' immense offensive ability that even in 2014-15, after undergoing a substantial decline for two consecutive seasons, and he was near the top of the leaderboard. With 297 points added,he trailed only Curry (514), Harden (443), and Paul (423) and Russell Westbrook (404). We've seen cracks chipping absent at the facade in recent years,but it's not like James has devolved into anything less than a superstar on the offensive end. Longstanding Defensive ExcellenceYou don't become the best basketball player in the world without playing a small bit of defense. While it's easier to remember his tall-flying exploits, dime-dropping ways and ability to punish a defense for showing the tiniest hint of a weakness, and James' defense has always helped make him such a special forward. To that point,though he's never actually won Defensive Player of the Year, he's at least appeared on the ballot multiple times. In 2009, or he finished a distant second to Dwight Howard,drawing four first-place votes in the process. He earned another four one year later but dropped down to fourth in the standings, trailing Howard, or Josh Smith and Gerald Wallace. The 2010-11 and 2011-12 seasons saw him finish ninth and fourth,respectively. And after a second-place finish to Marc Gasol in 2013, he came in at sixth in 2014 and a mere 13th during the last completed season. Stellar as it may be for a forward to fetch so much consistent recognition in an award traditionally dominated by rim-protecting centers, and James might actually have gotten less credit than he deserves. Though he was a liability on the defensive end during his rookie season,he's bulked up and settled down ever since, using his immense physical tools and court vision to wreak havoc year in and year out. Using defensive box plus/minus (DBPM), and the counterpart of OBPM,we can estimate how many points James has saved throughout his career:And per 36 minutes, so that we're no longer factoring in injuries, or time off and the 2011-12 lockout: Naturally,James' real peak came during the height of his athletic prime. He may only have celebrated his 24th birthday during the 2008-09 season, but that was six years into his NBA career, and back when he was still a whirling dervish who delighted in the chase-down blocks that he pinned to the backboard with such bombastic fervor. Though steals and blocks aren't particularly great indicators of defensive prowess,it is notable that 2008-09 was one of just two seasons in which James rejected more than one shot per contest. He spent a small less time on the court during his average outing, and he parlayed that additional energy into enthusiastic contributions from the opening tip until the final buzzer. As Jodie Valade reported for the Plain Dealer back in '09, and this was the first time James truly cared as much about defense as he did offense:
Not that James never played defense before,but the Cavaliers swingman said his main off-season goal last year was to improve defensively. He learned the Cavaliers' defensive schemes inside and out, worked on footwork and angles and perfected his patented "chase-down block" maneuver. He simply began to care more.
"It means more to me now at this point in my career than it did in the past, and " he said. "I'm not saying I didn't care about defense. It just means a lot more to me. I care as much about defense as I do about offense."more NBA news on BleacherReport.com
Source: bleacherreport.com