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Beyond your Los Angeles Lakers’ disappointing 2-6 record to start the 2022-23 NBA season, another bummer of the early season trend is the lackluster shooting of the team’s best player. Considering the team’s current standing at the bottom of the Western Conference has something to do with it.
Through eight games, 37-year-old LeBron James averaged 24 points, 9.1 rebounds, 7.5 assists, 1.1 steals and 0.9 blocks. Pretty impressive numbers for a guy entering his 20th NBA season.
That being said, I don’t understand that the situation has gotten to the point where LeBron James’ shooting numbers are worse than teammate Russell Westbrook, who has never been known as a particularly strong shooter. This writer was shocked, I tell you, to find the following comp from Micah Adams:
The field goal and three-point numbers are certainly big areas of concern. James has actually evolved from deep into a quite capable volume shooter. For his career, he averaged 34.5% on 4.5 triple attempts overall. Last season, he shot 35.9% on 8.0 looks from distance. It’s troubling that he’s only converting 20.7% of his high-volume 7.3 looks a night. This would represent his lowest three-point shooting percentage to date. If he’s going to continue to be truly bad, he needs to change his shooting profile and control his output from long range.
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As for overall shooting from the floor, James is a career 50.4% shooter. The 43.1% completion number is worse than all but one of his other seasons (his 2003-04 rookie year).
Here’s the rub: James is struggling with a sore left leg. He’s playing through it now, averaging 36.4 minutes a game, but LBJ’s lift isn’t there. It seems to at least affect his finishing in the paint, but who’s to say it doesn’t affect his jumpers as well? James had been bedridden for most of the past week with a non-Covid-19 illness. These depleting factors may be playing a large role in James’ shooting. It certainly doesn’t help that opposing defenses don’t respect LA’s outside shooters and often disrupt driving lanes with help coverage against James.
According to Kyle Goon of the Orange County Register, James seems to be blaming the disease on himself. “I lost my rhythm when I got this bug,” James said. “There were a few layups around the rim, not just threes. I feel like I’m out of sync. Didn’t get a chance to get on the practice floor because I was told quite a bit – not just told to stay away, but advised to stay away to save my energy for games.
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