LeBron James' Leadership Must Start on Defensive End

LeBron James' Cleveland Cavaliers hammered out their early-season offensive imperfections in short order, just as we knew they would.

The real work of fashioning a championship-caliber defense remains. And James has to be the one who buys in, sets the example and rallies an underwhelming defensive club to the task.

LeBron has his work cut out for him.

The LeBronephant in the Room

This is going to sting a little, but we need to talk about it: Quietly, James wasn't a great defender last season.

His block rate fell off a cliff, going from 1.2 swats per 100 possessions in 2012-13 to just 0.5 in 2013-14, per Basketball-Reference.com. That may not seem significant, but it's a key indicator that something changed in his defensive game. It's not clear whether LBJ's dwindling swats belied diminished athleticism or whether he simply stopped exerting the effort necessary to pile up blocks.

Admittedly, it takes some commitment to pull one of these off:

The bigger picture featured James routinely standing upright in his final Miami Heat season, moving with less urgency and generally taking a break on D. And that's to say nothing of the time he spent arguing calls instead of getting back in transition.

The anecdotal case gets support from the numbers; the Heat were better on defense with James on the bench last season by nearly two full points per 100 possessions, according to NBA.com.

Though we're dealing with a very small sample, Cleveland has allowed 109.8 points per 100 possessions with James on the bench and 110.1 with him in the game, per NBA.com. That's a minimal difference, but it continues the trend of James hurting his team on D.

And the strange moments of disinterest and lethargy have been cropping up more often than ever.

This is by no means a takedown of LeBron. Even given whatever diminished capacity he's been playing at lately, he's among the game's best overall players. And his teams' offenses have always performed significantly worse with him on the bench.

But this isn't about offense, and it's not about James' overall value, which is still unfathomably high.

It's about the message James needs to be sending but isn't.

Signal Jammed

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Through six games, the Cavaliers have posted the No. 29 defensive rating in the league. Only the Los Angeles Lakers have been worse, per NBA.com. For all the alarm bells that sounded when the Cavs totaled just six assists in a loss to the Utah Jazz, the team's offensive rating is now 106.3, good enough for ninth in the league.

That's not where many expected Cleveland to be, but it's hardly a glaring concern. Offense is not a problem.

You might argue James isn't physically able to play elite defense for sustained stretches. He's logged a ridiculous number of minutes over the past four years—the price of visiting four consecutive NBA Finals. Maybe he's just worn out.

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But it's not as though LeBron has fallen apart physically. We still get flashes, like the lob he broke up with a well-timed leap against the Denver Nuggets on Nov. 7 or the strip he made after darting in from the weak side in that same game.

Perhaps defense just isn't a priority for James anymore. Maybe he's conserving energy, cognizant of the 33,478 regular-season minutes he's already played in his career. He knows the playoffs are all that matter, so there's reason to believe he's taking it easy because of a big-picture approach.

But holding back is a dangerous thing to do on this team, with this group of players looking to him as an example.

At the very least, James is now talking about defense first.

After knocking off the New Orleans Pelicans on Nov. 9, LBJ told reporters, "We were in tune defensively from the beginning and ... sharing the ball. We were locked in. I was very pleased with that."

That's a start.

The best way for James to get guys like Kyrie Irving and Kevin Love—two players who've never been considered even average defenders—to up their games is by showing them how to put forth maximum effort on defense.

Irving has no excuse; he's young, athletically gifted and smart enough to become a shutdown stopper. If James were to set the tone by giving it his all on D, Irving would have to follow suit or risk a tidal wave of criticism.

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Love is a little different, as he lacks the lateral quickness necessary to excel. But when you see players like Marc Gasol, who is at least as slow afoot as Love is, dominating on D, it's clear that brains (which Love has) and a little bit of effort go a long way.

Yet we're not seeing LeBron set the defensive tone like he needs to.

Building for the Future

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For James, the mere act of trying is absolutely critical to building the Cavaliers into the two-way team they'll need to be if championship contention is the goal.

And it is the goal. It has to be—both now and in the future, which makes James' influence on the roster's young players all the more important.

There'll come a day when James is done in Cleveland. He'll be 30 this year, and guys like Irving (already inked to a five-year max) and Love (assuming he sticks around) are the franchise's future. If James is serious about giving back to his home state, about giving Cleveland and Ohio and the Cavaliers franchise something lasting, he must set an example worth following.

More immediately, Cleveland knows the Chicago Bulls are out there, waiting to get healthy enough to inevitably meet them in the conference finals. And the Cavaliers must know they'll need defensive intensity that matches the kind of locked-in focus the Bulls are sure to bring to any series.

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Without a rim protector or a lockdown wing (motivated LeBron excluded), the Cavs won't ever have the personnel to match up with Jimmy Butler, Taj Gibson and Joakim Noah—all of whom are defenders born and bred. But Cleveland has smart, athletic talents throughout the roster, and it can build a pretty good defense on basic principles executed with maximum effort.

James is the key, the catalyst. If he locks up big-name opponents, notches a few of his signature chase-down blocks and plays defense with a little passion, he can galvanize his team.

With minimal effort, Cleveland can be an elite, finesse-based offense capable of outscoring virtually anyone. That'll be easy.

But if it's real success—championship success—James and the Cavs are after, it's going to take a top-10 defense, forged through effort and the leadership of the game's biggest star.

From what we've seen so far, that's going to be much, much harder.

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