LeBron's Greatest Shooting Games
by Corey
In his Game 3 recap, Brian Windhorst wonders if LeBron's 47 points on 15-of-25 from the field Saturday ranks as His greatest shooting game ever. However, Windhorst doesn't really draw a final conclusion, so this felt like my cue to jump in.
"Greatest shooting game" is not very well-defined. It could mean "greatest scoring game" (in which case, "scoring" could simply mean "most points," but that's obviously not what we're talking about here) or it could mean "greatest display of shooting skills"—which could refer specifically to long-range shooting, as opposed to lay-ups, or even points earned at the foul line. On the other hand, the better-defined "most efficient scoring game" still doesn't quite get to the heart of it. For example, say LeBron were to go 4-of-4 from the field (2-of-2 from 3-point range) and 3-of-3 from the line; that would instantly become His "most efficient" performance ever. But He would only have scored 13 points, so He wouldn't exactly deserve any "degree of difficulty" bonus.
That in mind, let's approach this a couple of ways. For our purposes, I will consider "shooting" and "scoring" to be the same thing; I don't particularly care what type of shots LeBron attempts, so long as He is efficient and scores a lot. First off, let's simply rank LeBron's most efficient scoring games, as measured by TS% (that's True Shooting Percentage—essentially, eFG% but with foul shooting factored in, too):
I find it gratifying, by the way, to note that the top 4 most efficient scoring games in LeBron's career all took place this season. In fact, they all took place within the span of 61 days.
Next, let's try to introduce scoring volume into the equation. LeBron's highest-scoring game ever, of course, was 3/20/05 in Toronto, when He scored 56 (with a TS% of .657, making it the 87th-most efficient game of His career). Now, we'll have to decide how to weight efficiency against volume. In other words, is efficiency (measured in TS%) equally as important as volume (measured in points scored)? Twice as important? Half as important?
The truth is, I don't really know the answer (though there are ways one could try to figure it out), so I'm just going to take the easy route and weight the two equally. Of course, it's not enough to simply multiply TS% by points scored—that would just give us an approximation of the number of shots attempted. Instead, I'm going to average each game's "points rank" (for the 56-point game in Toronto, that would be 1) with its "TS% rank" (for the 56-point game, that would be 87).
In fact, the only way you can possibly frame the argument for Saturday's game as the "best scoring game" of LeBron's career is to consider the fact that, as a playoff game, it was "more important." Personally, I do care a great deal to know how LeBron performs in so-called "more important" situations, but I also feel it's a bit of a leap to say that because the game was more important, the performance itself was "better"—I prefer to judge the performance on the performance's own merits. But you could certainly make the argument that a .733 TS% in the playoffs is "better" (or "harder to accomplish") than a .733 TS% in the regular season. I wouldn't necessarily agree with you—but you would hardly be the first to say so.
Here, then, are LeBron's most efficient playoff games (measured solely by TS%):
In conclusion, I have scientifically determined that LeBron is, y'know, amazing... and stuff. Enjoy Game 4.
"Greatest shooting game" is not very well-defined. It could mean "greatest scoring game" (in which case, "scoring" could simply mean "most points," but that's obviously not what we're talking about here) or it could mean "greatest display of shooting skills"—which could refer specifically to long-range shooting, as opposed to lay-ups, or even points earned at the foul line. On the other hand, the better-defined "most efficient scoring game" still doesn't quite get to the heart of it. For example, say LeBron were to go 4-of-4 from the field (2-of-2 from 3-point range) and 3-of-3 from the line; that would instantly become His "most efficient" performance ever. But He would only have scored 13 points, so He wouldn't exactly deserve any "degree of difficulty" bonus.
That in mind, let's approach this a couple of ways. For our purposes, I will consider "shooting" and "scoring" to be the same thing; I don't particularly care what type of shots LeBron attempts, so long as He is efficient and scores a lot. First off, let's simply rank LeBron's most efficient scoring games, as measured by TS% (that's True Shooting Percentage—essentially, eFG% but with foul shooting factored in, too):
FG-FGA 3P-3PA FT-FTA Pts TS%Okay, so Saturday's game ranks only 28th, but it's clearly going to move up a bit once we attempt to account for volume of workload. At a minimum, though, there's no way LeBron's Game 3 performance against Atlanta can top February's game in Indiana (a 96-95 loss), in which LeBron scored the same number of points (47) but did it more efficiently. Obviously, for this exercise, I'm treating every game as if it were equally important. We'll look at playoffs-only in a bit.
1. 4/12/09 vs BOS 9-14 5-8 6-6 29 .871
2. 2/10/09 @ IND 15-21 4-7 13-14 47 .865
3. 3/2/09 @ MIA 13-21 6-7 10-10 42 .827
4. 3/4/09 vs MIL 7-11 4-5 5-7 23 .817
5. 3/15/05 vs UTA 11-15 2-5 12-16 36 .817
...
28. 5/9/09 @ ATL 15-25 5-10 12-16 47 .733
I find it gratifying, by the way, to note that the top 4 most efficient scoring games in LeBron's career all took place this season. In fact, they all took place within the span of 61 days.
Next, let's try to introduce scoring volume into the equation. LeBron's highest-scoring game ever, of course, was 3/20/05 in Toronto, when He scored 56 (with a TS% of .657, making it the 87th-most efficient game of His career). Now, we'll have to decide how to weight efficiency against volume. In other words, is efficiency (measured in TS%) equally as important as volume (measured in points scored)? Twice as important? Half as important?
The truth is, I don't really know the answer (though there are ways one could try to figure it out), so I'm just going to take the easy route and weight the two equally. Of course, it's not enough to simply multiply TS% by points scored—that would just give us an approximation of the number of shots attempted. Instead, I'm going to average each game's "points rank" (for the 56-point game in Toronto, that would be 1) with its "TS% rank" (for the 56-point game, that would be 87).
Pts rank TS% rank avg rankSo Saturday's game moves up to 10th. Admittedly, my decision to weight volume and efficiency equally was completely arbitrary, but at a minimum, there is one game (12/10/05 at Milwaukee) in which LeBron's performance was better in terms of both points and TS%, so I don't think there's any way we can objectively get Saturday's game to come out on top of the list.
1. 2/10/09 @ IND 47 10 .865 2 6.0
2. 12/10/05 @ MIL 52 3 .778 14 8.5
3. 3/29/06 vs DAL 46 14 .801 8 11.0
4. 3/2/09 @ MIA 42 26 .827 3 14.5
5. 4/1/06 vs MIA 47 10 .754 19 14.5
...
10. 5/9/09 @ ATL 47 10 .733 28 19.0
In fact, the only way you can possibly frame the argument for Saturday's game as the "best scoring game" of LeBron's career is to consider the fact that, as a playoff game, it was "more important." Personally, I do care a great deal to know how LeBron performs in so-called "more important" situations, but I also feel it's a bit of a leap to say that because the game was more important, the performance itself was "better"—I prefer to judge the performance on the performance's own merits. But you could certainly make the argument that a .733 TS% in the playoffs is "better" (or "harder to accomplish") than a .733 TS% in the regular season. I wouldn't necessarily agree with you—but you would hardly be the first to say so.
Here, then, are LeBron's most efficient playoff games (measured solely by TS%):
FG-FGA 3P-3PA FT-FTA Pts TS%The game in question does indeed come out on top. Next, here are LeBron's top playoff scoring games using my combined points/TS% "average rank":
1. 5/9/09 @ ATL 15-25 5-10 12-16 47 .733
2. 4/30/06 @ WAS 13-23 7-12 5-7 38 .729
3. 5/3/06 vs WAS 14-23 0-1 17-18 45 .728
4. 4/18/09 vs DET 13-20 1-4 11-14 38 .726
5. 5/5/09 vs ATL 12-20 2-6 8-9 34 .710
Pts rank TS% rank avg rankSo I think it's safe to say that Game 3 in Atlanta was clearly the best scoring performance in LeBron's postseason career. For those who are curious, LeBron's unforgettable Game 5 in Detroit in 2007 ranks 1st (among playoff games) in terms of points scored (48), but only 13th (among playoff games) in terms of TS% (.613). In that game, while LeBron was truly omnipotent in the fourth quarter and overtimes, He was merely superhuman in the first three quarters, so the game comes out as LeBron's 7th-best postseason scoring game, according to my arbitrary ranking system. Meanwhile, LeBron's legendary Game 7 shootout vs. Paul Pierce in 2008 ranks as His 8th-best postseason scoring game, ranking (among playoff games) 3rd in points (45) but only 17th in TS% (.602).
1. 5/9/09 @ ATL 47 10 .733 28 19.0
2. 5/3/06 vs WAS 45 16 .728 33 24.5
3. 4/30/06 @ WAS 38 47 .729 31 39.0
4. 4/18/09 vs DET 38 47 .726 34 40.5
5. 4/28/06 @ WAS 41 28 .641 110 69.0
In conclusion, I have scientifically determined that LeBron is, y'know, amazing... and stuff. Enjoy Game 4.
2 Comments:
You do a good job on "most efficient" -- but "greatest" is something different, in my mind. It does include the kind of shots, the situation, the fact that it's a pancake game, etc. Given all that, I'm not sure anything can ever top the Detroit game. Everyone on earth knew who was going to get the ball and what he was going to do with it, and still such a highly praised defensive team couldn't stop him. It was 1-on-5 and the 1 won. Even Jordan always had Pippen; LeBron didn't have anyone that day and still he was unstoppable.
I recall Vitaly Potapenko going for 20 straight against Washington early in his career, but it wasn't a playoff game and he wasn't the obvious first, second and third offensive options. Similarly, Bobby Phills (RIP) went for 43 against Portland in a multiple-OT game, but again, no pancakes and it was unexpected, so Portland wasn't game-planning for him to go off. So LJ in Day-twah has to rank among the "Greatest" if not "most efficient" games in the history of mankind.
Sure, as a complete game it may not have been his most efficient ever, but it's the kind of thing that will be legendary, more so than a more efficient but less impressive game. Just my 2c.
You're right—there are different kinds of "great," and the differences can be subtle. On the one hand, something can be "great" because it's memorable, unexpected, improbable, and/or causes us to feel certain emotions. The 2007 Game 5 in Detroit is definitely my favorite LeBron performance, and I wouldn't hesitate to call it His "greatest" scoring performance, to the extent that it was the most memorable, the most improbable, the one that made us cheer the loudest.
On the other hand, something is "great" because it is measurably beneficial to the team's success. This is obviously where my focus is most of the time—not because it's all I care about (far from it), but because it's the aspect more likely to be overlooked.
LeBron's performance in Game 5 against Detroit, for example, was extremely beneficial to the Cavs' success that night. But while I struggle to think of a way the performance could have been more exciting, I can think of countless ways it could have been more beneficial (that is, increased the Cavs' odds of winning the game). For example, LeBron could have missed fewer shots in the first three quarters, thus allowing the Cavs to win handily without the need for an overtime period. That would have been objectively "better" for the Cavs (though far less exciting, and therefore less memorable).
Conversely, all could have gone exactly as history records, with a lone exception: one of the Pistons players could have pulled off some super-improbable last-second shot to give Detroit the win at the end of the second overtime. This change of scenario ought to have no bearing on our discussion of how great LeBron's scoring performance was, since LeBron would have scored the same number of points, on the same number of attempts, in the same set of game situations. In no way, shape or form would it have been LeBron's fault the Cavs lost the game. But my guess is that if the Cavs had lost, we would not necessarily all remember it as LeBron's "greatest" game. That's a testament to how our emotions affect our perception of history in ways they probably shouldn't. And that's why I've chosen to be a voice for the more emotionless approach (which is sorely under-represented in the world of sports analysis). I promise, I still have emotions—and opinions that do not always agree with the analysis I present on the blog.
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