Nylon Calculus: How often can LeBron James become unstoppable?
By Ian Levy
After Dwyane Wade went to plaid and saved the Miami Heat in Game 2 of their series agains the Philadelphia 76ers, Todd Whitehead helped us visualize the frequency with which ‘Vintage Dwyane Wade’ has been showing up over the past few years.
On social media, we received several calls for a similar chart looking at the frequency of peak LeBron James performances. Given his 46-point, 12-rebound effort to help beat the Indiana Pacers in Game 2, Todd is helping me give the people what they want.
The chart below looks at the frequency of games with different levels of Game Score in each of his seasons. Game Score is a box-score based measure of a player’s overall impact in a single game.
LeBron’s Game Score of 40.9 in Game 2 was his highest since Nov. 3 (which, coincidentally, was the highest Game Score of his career), when he dropped 57 points on the Wizards with 11 rebounds and 7 assists. This was also just the fourth time LeBron has had a Game Score in the 40s since returning to the Cavaliers.
However, you can see from the graph that LeBron has had a slew of Game Scores in the 30s this season. Counting the playoffs, LeBron has had a Game Score of 30 or more in about 18 percent of his games this season, or roughly one in every five-and-a-half games. That’s about equal to LeBron’s percentage last season, although there was a big difference between his regular season (11 percent of games) and playoffs (50 percent). Both of these are huge upticks from his first two seasons since returning to Cleveland, when his Game Score topped 30 in just six and seven percent of his games, respectively. This is just more evidence of the absurd upward trend we’re seeing in LeBron’s 15th season.
Next: Using NBA matchup data to define defensive roles
The Cavaliers are now 14-2 this year when LeBron’s Game Score tops 30. This may be their most challenging playoff run of his second tenure with the team and they’ll need him to be at his peak almost every night. He certainly seems up to the challenge.