# When is Lebron's jumper gonna improve?



## Air Fly (Apr 19, 2005)

His shooting form looks awful and still the same. This makes me wonder if he'd ever improve on it.


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## ChiBron (Jun 24, 2002)

It's actually improved a lot considering how awful it was when he first came in the league. But you're right, it still has ways to go. LeBron struggles with the mechanics. When he goes straight up while shooting it usually looks good. But that doesn't happen often enough. He's usually fading away or leaning one side or the other.


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## futuristxen (Jun 26, 2003)

When was he supposed to improve it? In June? Right now he is a rhythm shooter, and obviously in the WC setting he has no rhythm going.

If you remember last year during the Hurricane Katrina game Lebron's jumper was atrocious, then when the year started it was much improved.

It's actually improved a ton since he came into the league. He shoots close to as well as Kobe does from deep, which I think would suprise some people. But he doesn't have the mid range shot that Kobe, Wade, and Melo all have. Not that he should waste his time on a mid range game. Get your *** in the post young man!


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## Pioneer10 (Sep 30, 2004)

He does need to develop an in between game: if not a pull up jumper a baby hook would be perfect. Considering how eerily similar a game he has to Magic at times this would be a great shot to develop. Help him on drives and posting up


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## Sir Patchwork (Jan 12, 2005)

Yeah, I think the worst part is that he is indecisive about it. He catches the ball and will hesitate to shoot it, and by the time he actually does, he can't possibly have any rhythm. The shot goes in sometimes, but the mechanics are still pretty off. I don't know that he'll ever be a good shooter unless he puts him some serious work on his form. He loses his elbow too often.


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## Air Fly (Apr 19, 2005)

I'm talking about the form or mechanics of his shot like Patchwork said. Though, his jumper could use a lil improvement.


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## Diable (Apr 26, 2005)

Think about how much better Lebron was than anyone he played against before he got into the NBA and how much of a physical advantage he had over everyone that ever got onto a court with him.The guy was literally toying with his contemporaries even when he was playing against the top prospects.There wasn't anyone that could prevent him from scoring at will or facilitating for his teammates because of the attention you draw when you're that much better than everyone else.

Most other guys need a jumper to be half so effective as he has been in the Pros...Lebron really only has to be mediocre at it to keep the defense reasonably honest.It really wouldn't be fair if he started stroking them MJ did after he decided that he needed to improve his jumper.You have to figure that the dude is smart enough to figure that out and start working at it.I'm sure the defender is going to be willing to let him take the jumpshot whenever he wants to work on it in a real game.


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## futuristxen (Jun 26, 2003)

Sir Patchwork said:


> Yeah, I think the worst part is that he is indecisive about it. He catches the ball and will hesitate to shoot it, and by the time he actually does, he can't possibly have any rhythm.


Can't really fault that aspect of it, given how many times that hesitation results in a bullet pass for a wide open lay up for a teammate. If you think Lebron is indecisive, do you also think Tim Duncan is? Because Duncan does the exact same thing when he gets the ball in the post. He'll turn and survey the floor. Lebron is doing the same thing. 

It's diffrent from guys like Melo and Wade who can focus more as just the scorer. Lebron's strength is his playmaking ability, and if he was just jacking shots without thinking about it like Melo, yeah he'd score a lot of points, but it would come at the expense of the rest of his team.

At the end of the day it's hard to find much fault with a guy who can put up over 30 points per game on almost 50 percent shooting while still getting 7 assists per game.

Nobody is perfect.


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## futuristxen (Jun 26, 2003)

Diable said:


> You have to figure that the dude is smart enough to figure that out and start working at it.I'm sure the defender is going to be willing to let him take the jumpshot whenever he wants to work on it in a real game.


All the evidence points to that he has been working on it ever since he came into the NBA. He used to drift all the time on his jumpers, now he squares up a lot more, and his shot has become a lot more consistent because of it.

Honestly I'm more concerned with Lebron's free-throw shooting. He's leaving a lot of points on the board in a lot of games with inexcusably bad free throw shooting. There's no excuse for a perimeter player to shoot them as bad as he does. He just doesn't focus when he is up there. And for a guy who gets fouled as much as he does, he needs to make teams pay even more than they already do.


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## lw32 (May 24, 2003)

Sir Patchwork said:


> Yeah, I think the worst part is that he is indecisive about it. He catches the ball and will hesitate to shoot it, and by the time he actually does, he can't possibly have any rhythm. The shot goes in sometimes, but the mechanics are still pretty off. I don't know that he'll ever be a good shooter unless he puts him some serious work on his form. He loses his elbow too often.


Right. When LeBron doesn't hesitate on his shot, it goes down. Here's a breakdown of LeBron on the offensive end from 82games. Take a look at the shot clock usage stats. Sir Patchwork is right, there's a strong correlation. If LeBron could get his jumpshot to about 45% (which he will with time) his percentages would sky rocket. 69% of his shots are jumpers, at eFG% of 41.3. He'd be shooting well over 50% with a small improvement.

I wouldn't worry too much about his jumper, it's respectable enough, and his ability to score in other ways at will makes it somewhat expendable. He needs to improve that FT%, he's only going to be attempting more as he develops.


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## futuristxen (Jun 26, 2003)

Lachlanwood32 said:


> Right. When LeBron doesn't hesitate on his shot, it goes down. Here's a breakdown of LeBron on the offensive end from 82games. Take a look at the shot clock usage stats. Sir Patchwork is right, there's a strong correlation.


A couple things about that. 
1) Doesn't most players who attempt enough shots in the final seconds of the shot clock, doesn't there field goal percentage go down? If you are going to be forced into a bad shot, it's usually going to be in the final seconds of the clock. Just because Lebron shoots in the final seconds doesn't mean he is hesitating. A lot of those shots have no hesitation because of the clock, those are crazy fadeaway hail mary's falling out of bounds. And the shots at the top of the clock are skewed because Lebron scores so many points in the fast break i.e. when the shot clock is still close to 24.

I think it's a diffrence in approaches between Lebron and say Melo and Kobe, but I don't think one is better than the other. Lebron's hesitation opens up more looks than it closes off, because he forces the defense to shift and gives his teammates more time to find the gaps. It would suck if he became a gunner like Melo because the most exciting aspects of his game are not Kobe-like scoring.


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## lw32 (May 24, 2003)

futuristxen said:


> A couple things about that.
> 1) Doesn't most players who attempt enough shots in the final seconds of the shot clock, doesn't there field goal percentage go down? If you are going to be forced into a bad shot, it's usually going to be in the final seconds of the clock. Just because Lebron shoots in the final seconds doesn't mean he is hesitating. A lot of those shots have no hesitation because of the clock, those are crazy fadeaway hail mary's falling out of bounds. And the shots at the top of the clock are skewed because Lebron scores so many points in the fast break i.e. when the shot clock is still close to 24.


That's probably the case, however when the relationship is divided into 4 sections, we have a middle too. It's not a sure thing, because you'd need to analyze the tapes too. Obviously hesitating on a shot takes a second off the clock. While it doesn't determine that when LeBron hesitates he's more likely to miss, it only helps the argument. There are factors which aren't considered, and there is no stat which breaks down the type of shot compared to the usage of the shot clock unfortunately. While you mention factors that do influence the formula, I can't see how it doesn't help. Even the difference between 11-15 seconds and 16-20 is big. Those are the mid-range usage brackets.

While LeBron does score a few fastbreak points, 64% of his shots are jumpers. 36% of his shots occur during the 0-10 shot clock usage bracket. Now, most fastbreaks take about 3-4 seconds to complete, not a whole 10. Most shots are going to be slightly easier if taken during the first 10 seconds though (you'd hope). If you come up with the percentage of fastbreak points LeBron scores per game, it'd be easy to calculate how many of the shots in the first bracket were really fastbreak.

Ok, Cleveland's pace last year was 89.8. Now, Cleveland shot 37% of their shots within 10 seconds. 33.26 attempts per game. eFG% was .541. They made about 18 shots per game within 10 seconds (or 36 points). Now, there is no way they were all fastbreak points. Cleveland's pace is relatively low when compared to the NBA. Ranked 19th overall, which leads me to believe they're not a team that runs a lot. So I'd say possibly 35% of those shots are fastbreak (correct me if you disagree) Which gives us about 12.5 fastbreak points per game for Cleveland (6.3 makes), which is decent.

Now for LeBron. He has 10.1 points scored within 10 seconds of usage. I'd say he makes up for possibly 50% of Clevelands fastbreak points? That's 6.25 fastbreak points per game. so he still has a little under 4 "quick" points a game. 6.25 points represents something around 20% of LeBron's points.

If you're still following me, I used numbers which I believe favor LeBron. This should show that his jumper is still weak, and the importance of fastbreak points isn't as big as you make it out to be. Around 40% of those first bracket usgae stats would not be fastbreak opportunities. Which means there is probably a defender on LeBron. Regardless, he still has work to do no matter how damn good he is.

LeBron's crunch time % is better than his % when the clock is down. Both are indicators of lowtime. So what's your argument there?

I agree with your assessment of his game though.


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## HB (May 1, 2004)

With Lebron I cant even fault anything he does. Well maybe defense, but on the offensive side, he can score any darn time he wants. I kinda prefer he doesnt develop a reliable jumper, because from what have seen of him, he will have that tendency to rely on it too much. And considering he is so young, he doesnt need that right now. I think his jumper is on the way there, still pretty streaky. But I was amazed by the development from his first season till now. Sadly with the worlds he wont have the chance to work on it as much as he should, but hey maybe that in itself is a good thing.


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## lw32 (May 24, 2003)

HB said:


> I kinda prefer he doesnt develop a reliable jumper, because from what have seen of him, he will have that tendency to rely on it too much.


Exactly, I'd hate for him to start shooting long range jumpers all day (a bit like Vince after his knee surgery). Eventually LeBron won't be able to dominate physically, and will either have to move inside or add a jumper though. I agree with your fear though.


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## Benedict_Boozer (Jul 16, 2004)

His form is actually already very clean when he takes pull-up or rhythym dribble shots. It forces him to square up, when he spot shoots though he always starts with the fading...that's the main issue IMO. 

I don't see it changing anytime soon either, he's been doing it for too long now. And he's actually gotten worse with the fading stuff since highschool, he loves holding that "lean back" follow through.


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## ballocks (May 15, 2003)

if i played lebron james one-on-one up to 100, i think he'd beat me 100 - ...~ 0. i would definitely back off and force him to take jumpers but... he could still beat me off the dribble approximately every time and dunk it on my face (literally causing blood to spew) oh, approximately every time as well. at around the 50 point mark, i'd have to put my pedal to the metal or risk losing, but that newfound focus would probably be offset by all the dunks (again literally) being finished on my face. i'd call for a timeout at 75-0, at which time i'd get my coaches to devise a modified strategy to get myself back in the game, and they would be sure to make some excellent suggestions that ~ wouldn't make a lick of difference. after the game, of course, i'd pull out my pen & pad to make notes and use them for our next encounter- but it would probably be naive to think that i could beat lebron even if he were to give me another chance. i think i would likely lose again- and if i had to hazard a guess, i think it could even be another blowout, maybe to the tune of 100-0. 

peace


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## bball2223 (Jul 21, 2006)

Lachlanwood32 said:


> Exactly, I'd hate for him to start shooting long range jumpers all day (a bit like Vince after his knee surgery). Eventually LeBron won't be able to dominate physically, and will either have to move inside or add a jumper though. I agree with your fear though.



Are you serious move LeBron inside? Even after he loses his a lot of his athleticism he could still be a Magic Johnson type PG. Magic Johnson was never athletic, and he played outside. LeBron will keep improving his jumper so thats the type of role he will have when his athleticism fades.


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