5 worst games of LeBron James' career

LeBron James had scored under 10 points in a game eight times in his career and scored at least 10 points in his last 1,122 games played. The last time he scored less than 10 points in a regular season game was January 5, 2007. To put in perspective how long ago that was, James' second oldest son, Bryce James, wasn't even born yet.

Monday night against the Phoenix Suns, James was in danger of ending that streak. He had just seven points with under two minutes left in the game, but hit a 3 and made a free throw to finish with 11 points and extend the streak.

Even with scoring just 11 points, James went 3-for-14 from the field, 2-for-5 from 3, and 3-for-6 from the free throw line. Monday's game was one of the worst performances of his long 22-year career, but he's been worse.

5. January 20, 2006

2005-06 was the first season where LeBron James he was talked about as potentially the best player in the world. He was second in the MVP voting and averaged a career high 31.4 points per game. In late January, he had one of the worst performances of his career.

The Cavaliers were playing the Golden State Warriors at Oracle Arena where James had 14 points, nine rebounds, and six assists. Overall, it doesn't look like a bad stat line, but James went 5-for-22 from the field, 0-for-3 from 3, 4-for-6 from the free throw line and had six turnovers.

Even though on the surface it does not look like a bad stat line, James had a game score of -0.1. Game score is a stat that is supposed to measure a player’s productivity in a game through their combined box score statistics, with a score of 10 being average. So, James having a -0.1 is very bad.

James’ performance caused the Cavs to lose their sixth straight game but soon after James followed this performance with 51 points in the next game. Was it a really bad performance by James? Yes. Is it the worst of his career? No.

4. December 3, 2003

LeBron James in his rookie year had five games scoring under 10 points, which was to be expected considering he was just 18 and 19 years old. This game was the 19th of his career playing the Los Angeles Clippers at the Staples Center.

James finished with four points, six rebounds, eight assists, two steals and five turnovers. He shot 2-for-13 from the field, 0-for-3 from the 3-point line, and took zero free throws in the game, which resulted in the Cavaliers losing by 10 points.

His game score in this game was 0.9, which once again, constitutes a very bad performance. Considering how great he would become; it's expected that most of the worst games in his career came very early on.

The most interesting stat in the game was James being a plus-3, meaning the Cavaliers outscore the Clippers by three points when he was on the court, which prevents this from being a little bit higher on the list.

3. December 29, 2004

The next game we're about to explore is one of the most abysmal stat lines James has ever had in his career. This was his second season and happened on the day before he turned 20-years old, but he looked like a role player in this game.

James finished with three points, three rebounds, five assists, but had zero steals, blocks, fouls, turnovers. He shot 0-for-5 from the field, 0-for-1 from three, and 3-for-5 from the free throw line while playing only 17 minutes.

His game score in this game was better than the previous two, 3.1 compared to 0.9 and -0.1, but having a 3.1 game score is still way below average. Even at that point in time of James' career, he was too good to have played that badly.

The three points James scored in this game is the lowest he has ever scored in any game. This was by far his worst regular-season performance. But the stakes in the next two performances is why this game isn't ranked No. 1.

2. Game 1 of 2008 Eastern Conference Semifinals

The 2008 Eastern Conference Semifinals between the Celtics and the Cavaliers was one of the best series of the late 2000s. There was LeBron trying to get back to the Finals but had to go against the newly formed Celtics big three of Paul Pierce, Kevin Garnett, and Ray Allen.

In Game 1, James finished with 12 points, nine rebounds, nine assists, one steal and one block. Where things go bad is him shooting 2-for-18 from the field, 0-for-6 from 3, a good 8-for-10 from the free throw line but having 10 turnovers.

James finished with a game score, even lower than the first on the list, with a -0.7 despite having a near triple double. It turns out that having this bad performance ended up affecting the rest of the series.

This series went seven games, with the home team winning every game. In Game 1, the Cavaliers lost by four points. So, if James played slightly better, they could have won, and gone up 1-0 to potentially win the series against the team ended up winning the 2008 championship.

1. Game 4 of 2011 NBA Finals

The 2011 NBA Finals was and still is the worst moment that ever happened in LeBron James' career. The Miami Heat formed the big three between James, Dwyane Wade and Chris Bosh and played an inferior Mavericks team in the finals. After being up 2-1 in the series, James completely fell apart as the Mavs won three straight, but James’ performance in Game 4 was horrendous.

In a pivotal Game 4 of the NBA Finals, James scored eight points, and had nine rebounds, seven assists, two steals, four turnovers and four fouls. He shot 3-for-11 from the field, 0-for-3 from 3, and 2-for-4 from the free throw line.

His game score was 5.9, which is kind of high for how bad he played but this performance is the worst of his career because of the stage on which it happened. The Heat had a chance to go up 3-1, which at the time, was a deficit no team had ever come back from.

The strange part about this performance was that James had already played in a Finals and played extremely well in the during the Heat's playoff run. Inexplicably melting down like this and for the rest of the series, makes this the worst performance in his career.