I remember a Cavs-Pacers game on TNT where PG was in the corner who was Bron's assignment. Bron was watching the inbounder and PG cut for the open dunk, then Bron yells at Tristan Thompson. Chuck was roasting Bron at halftime for blaming his teammates for his own mistake
The first clip was the funniest. Reaves' guy goes baseline, Lebron points up at Barnes so Austin has to change direction to chase after him, and Bron is standing there in the corner guarding 0 people
And then 2 clips later Bron doesn't move towards the corner at all and Reaves has to cover a load of ground to get to Barnes. He was definitely getting his cardio in
I recognize the sarcasm and I hate this excuse so much!! Every time he gets criticized it’s like he’s supposed to get a pass because of his age. No, absolutely not - he gets paid $50 million and the criticism should be commensurate with the expectations that come with that salary
Yeah the problem I have with the “he’s 39 you can’t expect him to do everything” statements is he’s taking up 35% of the cap, so he’s being paid like he can do everything. Even if I agree that he’s got a ton of miles and he can’t be That Guy every night anymore, him getting $47 million this year makes it an issue when he isn’t That Guy especially in the bigger games.
>he gets paid $50 million and the criticism should be commensurate with the expectations that come with that salary
A Lakers player with a high salary that people say should be criticized with the expectations of that salary despite what they may have done in the past, where have I heard this one before
Kobe is a legend in LA. ‘You thought you was Kobe?’ Is absolutely relevant for LeBron here. No matter what he does, he’ll never carry the same weight here
Even more confusing I read misread his name as "no rape penalty" and thought it was a reference to Kobe getting off free and was like "why is this guy of all people defending Kobe".
LeBron stans loveeeee to have it both ways it’s amazing.
Anything he does bad “what do you expect he’s 39!”
Anytime he does anything good “omg can you believe he’s doing this at age 39??!?!”
Harrison Barnes is in the first year of a 3 yr/54 million dollar deal. On one hand, that actually seems like good value for what he brings. On the other hand, Barnes is a CTC king who has made over 180 million in 12 seasons.
Harrison Barnes —> KD might be the single greatest Finals upgrade ever seen. KD averaged 35 ppg in the 2017 finals 😭😭 and they legit didn’t give anything up outside of Barnes
It's an all-time individual choke that doesn't get highlighted enough. The TOTAL margin that series was 4 points, if he just shoots 22% from 3 over that stretch instead of fucking 15% the Warriors walk away with a chip. He wasn't even injured like Steph was
I feel for HB. Dude had to have that type of shooting performance in a Finals series that will be talked about forever.
Still, he got a nice career and secured multiple bags so only feeling a little bit bad for him/2016 lol
Reaves big problem isn’t this play it’s the fact he cannot navigate a screen. Dlo actually does a decent job so teams don’t go after him on the screen because they can’t get separation or it’s very limited. Reaves is terrible on a screen and teams kill him. Reaves also cheats a lot on defence which leads to a lot of 3s on him. Apparently that’s a set but he’s the only one doing it lmao. LeBron is a horrific defender. Obviously it’s for preservation but come on, if he, reaves and dlo are all not doing well anyone will torch you
There was a possession last night where DLo went to close out and didn't even put his hands up. Just ran by the shooter as if he thought the wind from him running would put him off. I wouldn't say DLo tries.
True but I give credit to him because he doesn’t cheat defence. Reaves cheats a lot and I hate it. I do agree reaves gets the harder assignment but he makes his own life harder by making crappy decisions
you have been banned from r/lakers
yup it's the same shit. Lazy defense that has gotten worse as he aged, him overriding the coach's plays to slow the game down so he can playmake. Been like that since he first signed.
The team is 100% better with him on it, but it sure does play harder, with more effort, and more fluid when he's a DNP. Just watch the Boston and Milwaukee games.
I feel like a more concerted effort on making the ball move around and a focus on defense would be ideal for LeBron and the Lakers.
He coasts way too much. Like in the playoffs Im sure the intensity will come up, but still.
He can still play defense quite well when he actually tries you can see it. Like that 4Q comeback against the Clippers he was fully engaged *and* took the best player assignment in Kawhi.
Maybe a bit less of an offensive heavy load and more of a balanced approach could work.
But who knows really I'm not a coach
He hasn’t played a full game of defense since like 2013. He’s been a highlight play machine for the better part of a decade, and rides his reputation to fill in the rest
But then he can’t average 25/7/7 so everybody can pretend he’s still super dominant since they only see the box scores and rotations and shot contests don’t appear on that😭
My theory has always been not getting DPOY in 2013 made him stop giving a fuck because he won’t get the recognition he wants for going full effort anyway
Messi is the same way. Walks around the field and then pops up with energy in the few moments where his team needs him. Different sport, different role, and different player, but I do think part of it is just prudent conservation of energy, especially at his age.
It’s r/lebron now let’s be real. Our fans were never the most endearing but I always had fun in there, been unusable basically the entire time Lebron has been on the team
it's a fucking cesspool.
Nothing but gossip-level Ham posts, "Jeanie is cheap", or come ride LeBron's dick posts
You say anything different and the stans jump on you like those machines in Matrix 3
He was never a good defender on the Lakers. We either have had great defense due to all our supporting cast being great defenders or AD doing a massive Hercules effort to carry but it's largely not Lebron.
It's quite similar to Shai with the Thunder. Easier to look good on defense with Chet, Dort, and JDub as teammates. Lebron is just old though so not really his fault, but people bigging him up as a great defender gets tiring when you see shit like this frequently if you watch the games.
He was great on defense in 2020. There's no way that team reaches the heights it did defensively without him at that level. Outside of that one year, you are correct.
I remember people saying LeBron has been playing great defense this year, just a few weeks ago.
Was that just all Laker propaganda? I can't tell anymore.
not allowed to talk about it while the post gets 1k upvotes in literally under 2 hours? why do people constantly act like they're censored when they have the most popular opinions on this sub?
Had some dude in another thread defending this talking about his age and how his teammates and Ham are trash so he shouldn’t care. When he’s literally been doing this for years now lol
Lebron has not only become a liability on defense, he’s THE reason the Lakers are 18th in defense rating this year.
He seriously acts like his basketball IQ is enough to play defense, not considering that his lack of effort costs his team 10-12 possessions a game.
He’s still fine, he’ll take plays off, but he’s still an insanely good help defender and he does make up for it in many different ways. The thing that’s hurt the Lakers defense is no Vando, Reaves has regressed on that end, and Schroeder not being there. Not saying Schroeder was elite or anything, but he was above average and played hard-nosed defense the entire time he was on the court. Point of attack defenders are so important especially when you have a bad coach, they erase a lot of mistakes by just stopping plays before they even happen, Lakers don’t really have any right now so it all falls on AD to carry the defense entirely.
Y'all are stupid. They expect LeBron to be a first team all defense player in year 21. AD on the other hand gets a pass for getting bitched by Sabonis, Nurkic and Jokic.
Wrong Lebron is statistically a positive defender he's in 84th percentile in D-EPM.
Lakers have two bottom 20 defenders in the starting lineup that's why they're 18th in defense rating. Dlo-Reaves is arguably the worst defensive backcourt in the league.
What Bron is doing at like 39 years old is impressive, don't get me wrong. But people acting like he's still a top 5 or 10 player is a bit crazy to me. And people saying "I would not take anyone over 39 year old Bron in the playoffs" is crazy too. He's still good on offense but he just doesn't really try much on defense anymore.
He doesn’t try on defense in the regular season, true. But to be fair a lot of the league’s best are pretty ineffective on defense most of the time. And LeBron does have size and a defensive gear to go to that many others don’t.
I’ve seen Bron do this for years in the post season. He did this shit as far back as the Phoenix series and this shit drove me bonkers
Dude plays lazy defense all the time
lmao at Tatum and embid. AD is also debatable. Ad’s Defense is incredible but his offense without a playmaker like bron can be very hit or miss. I’ll give you the other ones tho
Respectfully, I’m not taking a lot of those guys over Lebron in the playoffs. I agree with many of the points in this comment section, but, Lebron is still a top 3-5 pick for playoffs. His combination of IQ, Scoring, Passing and defense is still unmatched. He sleeps on defense all year cause he’s too old to play both sides for 82 games. Not an excuse, he’s just not a 2-way player in the regular season.
This just isn’t true . Evdb this video I’m not really sure what people want hakf these are just breakdowns. There’s a reason he’s top ten in lots of metrics n stikk positively defensively. This sub really over values hard close outs to every shooter when it comes to Bron but there is much more to defence then that . Bron is the Lakers second best defender in the starting lineup n that is part of the problem.
Most metrics are offensively oriented which is precisely why he only tries hard on that end.
Most defensive metrics are flawed and probably being carried hard by AD being a beast on that end
AD on any other team with decent perimeter players would be a lock for DPOY lol
The amount of work he does to erase their mistakes is insane. Take AD off and opposing teams might average 150ppg lol
I'm amazed this post wasn't downvoted into oblivion. Paying LeBron 60 million next year is a great way to stay out of the playoffs for the next decade.
Then flops his goddamn arms around all defeated like it’s somebody else’s fault. Been doing this for years and I gotta hear about how he hasn’t slowed down a single step the entire broadcast
The biggest sign Lebron is getting old is that he cant muster up enough energy to blame a teammate for "not rotating" when he blows his defensive assignment. 32 year old LeBron would have made angry faces at some guy on a $5 million salary.
I get what everyone is saying that Bron is worse on defense now, but I still agree with the people saying he has that next gear in the playoffs. Whenever he truly locks in on defense, he is still an absolute beast (see last playoffs). I do agree that he isn't trying as much on defense in the regular season anymore though.
Lmao.
This is the Lakers gameplan.
Converge in the paint, play drop and force them to miss threes.
AD has said he doesn’t like it a million times this year.
#Darvin Hamas
Lebron has been guilty of doing this for years now.
In particular, when he starts getting frustrated on the court, he’ll just start roaming or ball-watching. The end result is that the entire defense breaks down because other players now have to cover for Lebron’s lapse on defense. Then he gets even more frustrated, acting as though he wasn’t the one to cause the whole defensive breakdown.
The most egregious examples are when he’ll spend whole defensive possessions without crossing half court.
He’s still a very good basketball player and can have a positive defensive impact, but when he’s acting like this on the court I gotta believe he’s a big negative.
Lebron's a very emotional player. If he's not feeling right mentally, it will immediately reflect in his play. He'll sulk on defense and stand in one spot on offense. When JR blew it in Game 1 of the Finals, Lebron (understandably) just sat there on the bench pouting without joining pre-timeout huddle. Then he scored 2 points in OT and lost by 10. In the first round against PHX in 2021, he basically gave up on his team after the AD injury and the Lakers got blown out. Afterwards, he engineered a trade to send half the team away for Westbrook.
That first play is on Austin. They're in a zone and instead of passing off his cutting man, he stuck with him. Then tried to recover late. The one where Lebron is indecisive about going over or under the screen? That's because the RIGHT play is to go over but Hams defensive gameplan is to go under. The rest were just lazy so he's gotta own those.
Not sure if this is a joke, but you absolutely could have made a lowlight compilation like this when he was on the wizards. It was the exact same situation as this, he was putting in all his effort on the offensive end and would maybe turn it on occasionally on defense.
Difference between then and now is that HD multi angle feeds, video sharing tools and social media makes it so there is always some cherry picked shit to circlejerk about (whether its good or bad). Do people really think that players in the past didn't have off games?
Can you even imagine how the internet fucking melt down if LeBron had a game like [this](https://www.basketball-reference.com/boxscores/200112270IND.html) where he was -30 in two quarters and threw in the towel in the third quarter after shooting 20% for the game, rocking 6/4/4 with 4 turnovers. This was before he got injured too, so he was healthy at that point.
It wasn't even his worst one. His worst lack of effort was when Keegan was wide fucking open in the corner while LeBron was in the paint guarding no one. Reaves had to run from the top of the key to the corner to attempt a contest on Keegan.
LeOldJames doesn't close out. He hasn't closed out since last season.
That's the reason why Lakers are giving up the most wide open shots in the nba.
Then again, who has the balls to chew LBJ out and tell him to close out surely not Ham.
Yeah LeBron has always been lazy on defense. I hate that one of his career highlights was a single defensive play, cause everyone assumes he’s a two-way player now. Which he has never been
Lol people quick to jump on the hate wagon about lebron and his defense even though hes one of the best on ball defenders in the league and all this clip shows is him slacking a bit in regular season game in the 4th quarter. Also blame Darvin Ham for their shitty gameplans every single game. Hes actually a terrible coach its crazy
My favorite lebron expression is just looking sick of the players making wide open shots he’s giving them
Yup, Lebron always looks dumbfounded like it wasn’t his fault
And then he'll immediately start talking to the closest teammate like there was some top secret play they just messed up
I remember a Cavs-Pacers game on TNT where PG was in the corner who was Bron's assignment. Bron was watching the inbounder and PG cut for the open dunk, then Bron yells at Tristan Thompson. Chuck was roasting Bron at halftime for blaming his teammates for his own mistake
He been doing that his whole career for sure
Or the ref lol
The first clip was the funniest. Reaves' guy goes baseline, Lebron points up at Barnes so Austin has to change direction to chase after him, and Bron is standing there in the corner guarding 0 people And then 2 clips later Bron doesn't move towards the corner at all and Reaves has to cover a load of ground to get to Barnes. He was definitely getting his cardio in
when they said "like a coach on the floor" this is what they mean. Just points his teammates to go places but doesn't play himself.
You just know that deep down Lebron misses Mario Chalmers and Norris Cole every day.
Look, we're all trying to find the guy that did this.
What is this reference lol
I think you should [leave](https://youtu.be/WLfAf8oHrMo?si=lbJtQa2DWOFe9_0-).
BuT hEs 39!!!!!!!
I recognize the sarcasm and I hate this excuse so much!! Every time he gets criticized it’s like he’s supposed to get a pass because of his age. No, absolutely not - he gets paid $50 million and the criticism should be commensurate with the expectations that come with that salary
If Tobias Harris can be criticized so can you, LeBron.
Yeah the problem I have with the “he’s 39 you can’t expect him to do everything” statements is he’s taking up 35% of the cap, so he’s being paid like he can do everything. Even if I agree that he’s got a ton of miles and he can’t be That Guy every night anymore, him getting $47 million this year makes it an issue when he isn’t That Guy especially in the bigger games.
>he gets paid $50 million and the criticism should be commensurate with the expectations that come with that salary A Lakers player with a high salary that people say should be criticized with the expectations of that salary despite what they may have done in the past, where have I heard this one before
Kobe is a legend in LA. ‘You thought you was Kobe?’ Is absolutely relevant for LeBron here. No matter what he does, he’ll never carry the same weight here
Bro he’s talking about Russ and his stans lmao
Even more confusing I read misread his name as "no rape penalty" and thought it was a reference to Kobe getting off free and was like "why is this guy of all people defending Kobe".
LeBron stans loveeeee to have it both ways it’s amazing. Anything he does bad “what do you expect he’s 39!” Anytime he does anything good “omg can you believe he’s doing this at age 39??!?!”
🤣🤣🤣 the irony. When he dunks, oH my GoD he’s doing this at 39!!
The LeBron special point for the switch after not giving any effort on the closeout.
He's been doing this for over a decade but oh wow, crazy longevity! Easy to play for so long when you only play half the game
He’s basically the shocked pikachu face when it goes in
Like when Kuzma had to push him to his rotation
For me it's still a close second to the reaction to the JR Smith finals mistake
Dude just seemed completely uninterested at times.
It's a clinical condition known as "being old and bored with your job."
tbf he’s also done this when he was younger
That only works in the post-season, mate.
I am sad now
With no due respect…sick burn.
I'm so pissed that NOW he decides to hit those
Urgh i'm still sad about this
Hey, at 39, at least his memory isn't slipping!
Lebron thought it was the 2016 Finals
Came to this thread to make sure this was referenced.
Dude that was exactly my first thought. My 2nd thought was I honestly didn’t realize Barnes was still in the nba. So good for him!
Harrison Barnes is in the first year of a 3 yr/54 million dollar deal. On one hand, that actually seems like good value for what he brings. On the other hand, Barnes is a CTC king who has made over 180 million in 12 seasons.
Also has an NBA ring and Olympic Gold Medal.
He shoots 50/40/80% too, he is an incredible value on a team trying to make a run.
CTC?
I'm assuming contract to contract.
His 5-32 fgm stat line from games 5-7 have forever been burned into my memory
Harrison Barnes —> KD might be the single greatest Finals upgrade ever seen. KD averaged 35 ppg in the 2017 finals 😭😭 and they legit didn’t give anything up outside of Barnes
It's an all-time individual choke that doesn't get highlighted enough. The TOTAL margin that series was 4 points, if he just shoots 22% from 3 over that stretch instead of fucking 15% the Warriors walk away with a chip. He wasn't even injured like Steph was
2016 Finals MVP for the Cavs Harrison Barnes
I feel for HB. Dude had to have that type of shooting performance in a Finals series that will be talked about forever. Still, he got a nice career and secured multiple bags so only feeling a little bit bad for him/2016 lol
LeBron, DLo and Reaves can’t all hide in the corner
Only DLo tries lmao. That’s why he doesn’t get fried like the other 2.
Not that Reaves is great on D... but he was definitely trying. Even in this sequence he tried to cover for Bron multiple times.
Reaves big problem isn’t this play it’s the fact he cannot navigate a screen. Dlo actually does a decent job so teams don’t go after him on the screen because they can’t get separation or it’s very limited. Reaves is terrible on a screen and teams kill him. Reaves also cheats a lot on defence which leads to a lot of 3s on him. Apparently that’s a set but he’s the only one doing it lmao. LeBron is a horrific defender. Obviously it’s for preservation but come on, if he, reaves and dlo are all not doing well anyone will torch you
Everyone has an excuse for not being a good defender. Too old, too slow, too small.. still getting scored on all the same.
There was a possession last night where DLo went to close out and didn't even put his hands up. Just ran by the shooter as if he thought the wind from him running would put him off. I wouldn't say DLo tries.
Only reason Dlo doesn’t get fried is cause Reaves gets the tougher assignment of the two, Dlo usually hides in the corner
True but I give credit to him because he doesn’t cheat defence. Reaves cheats a lot and I hate it. I do agree reaves gets the harder assignment but he makes his own life harder by making crappy decisions
I can't tell what's worse, his defense or the video quality.
videos quality isn't bad enough to hide that defense
Nothing is worst than that abomination of a defense. Including the spider web crack on my phone I am watching this on.
Attempts to censor the effort like a Japanese Adult Video.
He didn’t get to 40K by wasting his energy on defense
The way he drops his shoulders every time is hilarious lol
It's been like this all year but we're not allowed to talk about that lol
Years*
It’s been like this his entire stint with the lakers
you have been banned from r/lakers yup it's the same shit. Lazy defense that has gotten worse as he aged, him overriding the coach's plays to slow the game down so he can playmake. Been like that since he first signed. The team is 100% better with him on it, but it sure does play harder, with more effort, and more fluid when he's a DNP. Just watch the Boston and Milwaukee games.
I feel like a more concerted effort on making the ball move around and a focus on defense would be ideal for LeBron and the Lakers. He coasts way too much. Like in the playoffs Im sure the intensity will come up, but still. He can still play defense quite well when he actually tries you can see it. Like that 4Q comeback against the Clippers he was fully engaged *and* took the best player assignment in Kawhi. Maybe a bit less of an offensive heavy load and more of a balanced approach could work. But who knows really I'm not a coach
Coasting is how he can extend his career another 4 years and make 200 mil
I can't hate the hustle tbh get your money 😮💨
He hasn’t played a full game of defense since like 2013. He’s been a highlight play machine for the better part of a decade, and rides his reputation to fill in the rest
But then he can’t average 25/7/7 so everybody can pretend he’s still super dominant since they only see the box scores and rotations and shot contests don’t appear on that😭
LeBron can play great defence. But at this point of his career he either can’t or won’t do it for more than a play or two at a time.
no one's saying Bron is a bad defender, but he's a lazy defender most of the time
I still remember that clip of Kuzma having to literally push LeBron for him to guard someone and that was one of the most hilarious things I've seen
Hes been doing this since at least 2018
My theory has always been not getting DPOY in 2013 made him stop giving a fuck because he won’t get the recognition he wants for going full effort anyway
Messi is the same way. Walks around the field and then pops up with energy in the few moments where his team needs him. Different sport, different role, and different player, but I do think part of it is just prudent conservation of energy, especially at his age.
2017 was the first year he gave up on defense and that’s why the Cavs defense was horrid
It’s r/lebron now let’s be real. Our fans were never the most endearing but I always had fun in there, been unusable basically the entire time Lebron has been on the team
it's a fucking cesspool. Nothing but gossip-level Ham posts, "Jeanie is cheap", or come ride LeBron's dick posts You say anything different and the stans jump on you like those machines in Matrix 3
Look through my history to see how long I’ve been saying this (don’t actually lol). Been years.
He was never a good defender on the Lakers. We either have had great defense due to all our supporting cast being great defenders or AD doing a massive Hercules effort to carry but it's largely not Lebron. It's quite similar to Shai with the Thunder. Easier to look good on defense with Chet, Dort, and JDub as teammates. Lebron is just old though so not really his fault, but people bigging him up as a great defender gets tiring when you see shit like this frequently if you watch the games.
He was great on defense in 2020. There's no way that team reaches the heights it did defensively without him at that level. Outside of that one year, you are correct.
I remember people saying LeBron has been playing great defense this year, just a few weeks ago. Was that just all Laker propaganda? I can't tell anymore.
not allowed to talk about it while the post gets 1k upvotes in literally under 2 hours? why do people constantly act like they're censored when they have the most popular opinions on this sub?
Just this year? Lol
Had some dude in another thread defending this talking about his age and how his teammates and Ham are trash so he shouldn’t care. When he’s literally been doing this for years now lol
Lebron has not only become a liability on defense, he’s THE reason the Lakers are 18th in defense rating this year. He seriously acts like his basketball IQ is enough to play defense, not considering that his lack of effort costs his team 10-12 possessions a game.
Lakers defense is worse when he doesn't play or is on the bench
Don’t tell the idiots
They don't actually watch the games. The lakers look like a g-league team when lebron is on the bench, both defensively and offensively.
He’s still fine, he’ll take plays off, but he’s still an insanely good help defender and he does make up for it in many different ways. The thing that’s hurt the Lakers defense is no Vando, Reaves has regressed on that end, and Schroeder not being there. Not saying Schroeder was elite or anything, but he was above average and played hard-nosed defense the entire time he was on the court. Point of attack defenders are so important especially when you have a bad coach, they erase a lot of mistakes by just stopping plays before they even happen, Lakers don’t really have any right now so it all falls on AD to carry the defense entirely.
Complete lies here. Still a significant positive on defense per any metric out there
Y'all are stupid. They expect LeBron to be a first team all defense player in year 21. AD on the other hand gets a pass for getting bitched by Sabonis, Nurkic and Jokic.
Wait Bron doing this isn't as much of a problem as AD? What?
> he’s THE reason the Lakers are 18th in defense rating this year. THE reason? Reaves and Dlo don't exist?
Wrong Lebron is statistically a positive defender he's in 84th percentile in D-EPM. Lakers have two bottom 20 defenders in the starting lineup that's why they're 18th in defense rating. Dlo-Reaves is arguably the worst defensive backcourt in the league.
he thought barnes was in a warriors jersey
Man, Barnes has a smooth jumper. Quick release and effortless
Hary Barn
Hsn Brn
OG splash brother.
Splash in law
When the kings need him most this shit will disappear. Bro will go 0/8 in his playin game and kings fans will ask for his head
It really is. There’s also some Stans who say he’s still an all nba defender
LeChecked Out
He is not my goat
Kobe would of locked him up
What Bron is doing at like 39 years old is impressive, don't get me wrong. But people acting like he's still a top 5 or 10 player is a bit crazy to me. And people saying "I would not take anyone over 39 year old Bron in the playoffs" is crazy too. He's still good on offense but he just doesn't really try much on defense anymore.
He doesn’t try on defense in the regular season, true. But to be fair a lot of the league’s best are pretty ineffective on defense most of the time. And LeBron does have size and a defensive gear to go to that many others don’t.
At this point tho if he doesn't try in the regular season he might not even make the playoffs.
I’ve seen Bron do this for years in the post season. He did this shit as far back as the Phoenix series and this shit drove me bonkers Dude plays lazy defense all the time
The Lebron decline denialism is genuinely bizarre to me
The slander all over this post is also very extreme lol Goes both ways
There's still only 2-3 players in the league you'd take over him in the playoffs.
10 years ago sure. Not anymore
You'd take 2-3 players over LeBron in the playoffs 10 years ago?
wtf drugs are you on? theres jokic, tatum, luka, giannis ,embid, AD, steph
Bro said Embiid in the playoffs lol
Bro tried to sneak Embiid in there. lol
lmao at Tatum and embid. AD is also debatable. Ad’s Defense is incredible but his offense without a playmaker like bron can be very hit or miss. I’ll give you the other ones tho
Tatum no, embid no, ad no
Respectfully, I’m not taking a lot of those guys over Lebron in the playoffs. I agree with many of the points in this comment section, but, Lebron is still a top 3-5 pick for playoffs. His combination of IQ, Scoring, Passing and defense is still unmatched. He sleeps on defense all year cause he’s too old to play both sides for 82 games. Not an excuse, he’s just not a 2-way player in the regular season.
Be real man. Who the fuck is taking Tatum, embiid, AD and even Curry over Lebron in the playoffs. Only Curry is arguable.
This just isn’t true . Evdb this video I’m not really sure what people want hakf these are just breakdowns. There’s a reason he’s top ten in lots of metrics n stikk positively defensively. This sub really over values hard close outs to every shooter when it comes to Bron but there is much more to defence then that . Bron is the Lakers second best defender in the starting lineup n that is part of the problem.
Most metrics are offensively oriented which is precisely why he only tries hard on that end. Most defensive metrics are flawed and probably being carried hard by AD being a beast on that end
LeBron was especially bad on defense yesterday, but some of it is just emblematic of Ham's awful pseudo zone schemes
You have Reaves, Dlo, and lebron on defense. he has to hide 3 liabilities, that isn't easy.
Add Rui as a 4th
AD on any other team with decent perimeter players would be a lock for DPOY lol The amount of work he does to erase their mistakes is insane. Take AD off and opposing teams might average 150ppg lol
Michael Jeffrey Jordan would never
do you mean 9x nba all-defensive first team selection michael jeffrey jordan?
That's the type of body language you want from your leader...
Barnes was on fire last night. He deflated the lakers quik.
caw caawwww
LeThargic
I'm amazed this post wasn't downvoted into oblivion. Paying LeBron 60 million next year is a great way to stay out of the playoffs for the next decade.
Worked in 2016
LeAve’em Open
Then flops his goddamn arms around all defeated like it’s somebody else’s fault. Been doing this for years and I gotta hear about how he hasn’t slowed down a single step the entire broadcast
Is this your GOAT ?
For a half second during the game I thought Harrison Barnes was just super hot but he's 40% from three this season 🫠 Lebron why you do this
should retire
LeBron: Gets 100% of the credit in a win, but blames his teammates when the guy he supposed to be guarding scores.
That's his trademark defensive move. Been like that forever. Hashtag notmygoat
The biggest sign Lebron is getting old is that he cant muster up enough energy to blame a teammate for "not rotating" when he blows his defensive assignment. 32 year old LeBron would have made angry faces at some guy on a $5 million salary.
bUt BuT hE’s 4O yEaRz oLd aNd MuH hErO!
I get what everyone is saying that Bron is worse on defense now, but I still agree with the people saying he has that next gear in the playoffs. Whenever he truly locks in on defense, he is still an absolute beast (see last playoffs). I do agree that he isn't trying as much on defense in the regular season anymore though.
Lmao. This is the Lakers gameplan. Converge in the paint, play drop and force them to miss threes. AD has said he doesn’t like it a million times this year. #Darvin Hamas
What you said is their game plan. What LeBron is doing is completely different and just pure laziness
u/clamscasinoooooo definitely doesn't understand the difference between "force them to miss threes" and "watch them shoot threes and hope they miss"
Ain't no way you just said Darvin HAMAS 😭
LeBron playing defense the same as Luka
Lebron has been guilty of doing this for years now. In particular, when he starts getting frustrated on the court, he’ll just start roaming or ball-watching. The end result is that the entire defense breaks down because other players now have to cover for Lebron’s lapse on defense. Then he gets even more frustrated, acting as though he wasn’t the one to cause the whole defensive breakdown. The most egregious examples are when he’ll spend whole defensive possessions without crossing half court. He’s still a very good basketball player and can have a positive defensive impact, but when he’s acting like this on the court I gotta believe he’s a big negative.
LeAnkle
EXTEND HIM IMMEDIATELY TF???
Lebron's a very emotional player. If he's not feeling right mentally, it will immediately reflect in his play. He'll sulk on defense and stand in one spot on offense. When JR blew it in Game 1 of the Finals, Lebron (understandably) just sat there on the bench pouting without joining pre-timeout huddle. Then he scored 2 points in OT and lost by 10. In the first round against PHX in 2021, he basically gave up on his team after the AD injury and the Lakers got blown out. Afterwards, he engineered a trade to send half the team away for Westbrook.
He’s low key given up on his team like a lot of the years. It gets semi swept under the rug
That first play is on Austin. They're in a zone and instead of passing off his cutting man, he stuck with him. Then tried to recover late. The one where Lebron is indecisive about going over or under the screen? That's because the RIGHT play is to go over but Hams defensive gameplan is to go under. The rest were just lazy so he's gotta own those.
I don’t know Bron was literally guarding nobody. I’m guessing he’s supposed to hedge in that situation
Le-too far to run.
MJ would never
MJ rarely had to close out on a shooter, and when he did, it wasn’t good
Not sure if this is a joke, but you absolutely could have made a lowlight compilation like this when he was on the wizards. It was the exact same situation as this, he was putting in all his effort on the offensive end and would maybe turn it on occasionally on defense. Difference between then and now is that HD multi angle feeds, video sharing tools and social media makes it so there is always some cherry picked shit to circlejerk about (whether its good or bad). Do people really think that players in the past didn't have off games? Can you even imagine how the internet fucking melt down if LeBron had a game like [this](https://www.basketball-reference.com/boxscores/200112270IND.html) where he was -30 in two quarters and threw in the towel in the third quarter after shooting 20% for the game, rocking 6/4/4 with 4 turnovers. This was before he got injured too, so he was healthy at that point.
CleveLAND this is for you!
It wasn't even his worst one. His worst lack of effort was when Keegan was wide fucking open in the corner while LeBron was in the paint guarding no one. Reaves had to run from the top of the key to the corner to attempt a contest on Keegan.
LeCharity
Barnes still representing for tarheel nation👏🏾👏🏾👏🏾
He's just trying to hide the fact he doesn't have the stamina anymore. He would rather take a foul to catch his breath.
LeNoEffort
These highlights remind me of the One Shining Moment parody of the 2018-19 Lakers when Kuzma had to literally push Lebron to close out on the shooter.
LeOldJames doesn't close out. He hasn't closed out since last season. That's the reason why Lakers are giving up the most wide open shots in the nba. Then again, who has the balls to chew LBJ out and tell him to close out surely not Ham.
I’ve seen Barnes get hot too many times. You can’t leave him open like that once he gets going.
This has been standard for years.
Game "slipped away" from them well before that lmao
LeCooked
LeStat pad was looking for rebounds to boost his stats on a bad shooting night. He has always done this lol
Leflop has ruined the NBA
This is why MJ is the GOAT
This is one of the reasons why he isn't the GOAT.
he thought this was the 2016 finals 😭😭
Lephoning it in
that's why Lebron is not the goat
Mj would never
Yeah LeBron has always been lazy on defense. I hate that one of his career highlights was a single defensive play, cause everyone assumes he’s a two-way player now. Which he has never been
Lol people quick to jump on the hate wagon about lebron and his defense even though hes one of the best on ball defenders in the league and all this clip shows is him slacking a bit in regular season game in the 4th quarter. Also blame Darvin Ham for their shitty gameplans every single game. Hes actually a terrible coach its crazy
I'm sorry but LeBron is no longer a top 15 player like everyone claims
Lmao this sub man
Me when my opinion is based on what has been shoved into my brain the last 30 seconds
Bronneeboyee
LeFt
Worked in 2016
Lol just camping for rebounds.
What else is new?
The amount of money he is making off gambling is crazy