Atlanta Hawks: How Poor Fit Can Turn Elite Talent Average

2 of 7

May 6, 2016; Atlanta, GA, USA; Cleveland Cavaliers forward LeBron James (23) drives the ball to the basket against Atlanta Hawks forward Kent Bazemore (24) during the second half in game three of the second round of the NBA Playoffs at Philips Arena. The Cavaliers defeated the Hawks 121-108. Mandatory Credit: Dale Zanine-USA TODAY Sports /

Hot Take: Lebron James Is Better Than Kent Bazemore

Last season, Kent Bazemore weighed 201 pounds while being of a 6-foot-5 height. Lebron James weighed 249 pounds while being 6-foot-8 . Bazemore excels as a three-point specialist on offense and as a versatile defender to play against shooting guards and small forwards.

Lebron excels from every spot on the floor on offense and can guard 1 through 4’s effectively, and some 5’s. Bazemore cannot guard Lebron James, neither laterally or in the post, and he was Atlanta’s best wing defender.

While Bazemore is very productive in his role, his limited offensive skills and responsibility indicates that Lebron James should not have to expend too much energy guarding Bazemore.

More from Sir Charles In Charge

Therefore, not only could LeBron more easily score his season average of 25.3 points a game or more against Bazemore, his physical advantages meant that he could penetrate the defense one-on-one and either finish or pass out to one of Cleveland’s myriad of capable shooters.

This meant that Atlanta had to send help at the top of the key anytime LeBron had the ball and gave any indication that he was going to attack the paint. Playing a zone would likely not alleviate Atlanta’s issues in this area, since Lebron’s advantages against Bazemore extend to Atlanta’s other perimeter defenders, and help would always have to come to protect against LeBron shredding the defense with penetration easily created by his physical dominance.

As a preeminent passer, LeBron would be more than willing to pass to his capable and now open shooters. Furthermore, Atlanta could in no way rely on Bazemore to make up for LeBron’s production.

Kent Bazemore averaged 8.8 points a game against Cleveland and has never been seen as a go-to option in his entire NBA career. LeBron averaged 24.2 a game against Atlanta and has been one of the best scorers in the NBA since he was drafted. Essentially, Atlanta was losing a positional battle every game by around 15 points on average.

Therefore, Jeff Teague, Paul Millsap and Al Horford all would have to vastly outperform their positional opponents to win. In other words, there generally had to be a net gain of 15 points coming from other positions on the floor!

To put it lightly, Lebron James had just a slight advantage over Kent Bazemore. This advantage was kind of a deal breaker for the Hawks

Unfortunately for Atlanta, in the playoffs, it is very unlikely that any given matchup will be that favorable. Again, the best you could say about the rest of Atlanta’s starting lineup and bench is that they compare favorably to Cleveland’s. Jeff Teague at his very best could score as much or maybe just a few points less than Kyrie Irving, with the same being true for the dichotomy between Kyle Korver and JR Smith, along with Al Horford (in his current role) and Tristan Thompson.

Only three-time All-Star Paul Millsap could feasibly be expected to be a net production win over Kevin Love, and even so it’s not a comparable situation to LeBron and Kent Bazemore. Remember, LeBron essentially put the Cavaliers 15 points ahead on the scoreboard when playing against last year’s Hawks.

What net gain does Paul Millsap give the Hawks? Five points at most? In fact, Kevin Love averaged 19 points per game against Atlanta in the playoffs and can generally be relied upon to provide reliable amounts of shooting and makes off offensive rebounds against any team. Millsap is an on paper more dynamic scorer than Love with stronger face up isolation skills, but his numbers against the Hawks didn’t exactly support that; with him scoring “merely” 17.3 points per game against the Cavaliers.

The facts unfortunately conflict with my on paper expected production, but let’s just say for argument’s sake that Millsap performed as I would have expected and scored five more points per game than Kevin Love. That still leaves 10 points to for the Hawks to make up, on average. And that’s basic numeric analysis; lord knows LeBron’s penetration and dishing against Bazemore’s defense drastically lowered the difficulty of shots for his team mates and probably heavily increased their efficiency.

Even so, the on paper series looked to be a closer one, why couldn’t Millsap, Horford, and Teague win even one game for the Hawks? What caused such a lopsided victory? Why didn’t Millsap perform as well as one might expect? Was it the talent itself? Or was a lack of balance the true culprit here?

Next: When Three Isn't Enough

Home/Atlanta Hawks