Lebron James' Other Skills

When people talk about how great Lebron James is they usually, as with most other superstars, only talk about how great he is at scoring.  They usually miss the two points that actually make him the greatest basketball player in the NBA right now:

1) Lebron has to be one of the top 3 or 4 decision makers in the NBA on the offensive side of the ball. And if you exclude point-guards, no one can touch his decision making skills. Counting assist totals, while impressive, does not do him justice. It is not only the passes he makes, but the shots that he does NOT attempt that make him so great. For his career, Lebron is a 48% shooter. You will seldom see Lebron force low percentage circus shots, something that almost every other star loves to do (see Kobe, Rose, Ellis, Wade, Westbrook, Melo etc.), or not make the right pass when double teamed. The only ones who can rival Lebron in this department are Chris Paul, Steve Nash, and Deron Williams. The closest non-pg to Lebron in this category is Dirk Nowitzki. It is no coincidence that Lebron and Dirk are going to see each other in the Finals. If basketball had hockey assists, then Dirk would be top 10 in the league. Both of these players make extremely hard shots easy, high percentage shots by using their strength (Lebron) and their length and unorthodox shot (Nowtizki). Most other 'superstars' are considered superstars because they can make a circus shot at a higher rate then anybody else. It is good to be able to make those shots, but is not something that should be relied upon at all times (again, see Kobe, Rose, Melo, Ellis, etc).

2) This point is not so much underrated, as he is on the 1st all defensive team, but it is still not talked about enough.  This is the reason Rose, and countless others, are not even close to being in the same class as Lebron is.  At the end of a close game you can throw Lebron at the other team's best scorer every single time. Literally. There are maybe only 2 or 3 players (Howard, Bynum, ?) in all of the NBA he can not cover, and both of those players are not getting the ball in crunch time anyway. He showed last night he can cover one of, and perhaps the single, quickest players in the NBA, and he has the height and strength to bang with almost every big in the league. Although Bosh might be able to play good defense on Nowtizki due to Bosh's height/length and Nowitzki's non-physical style, it will be very interesting to see what happens if and when Lebron is asked to cover Dirk. I will not be surprised if Lebron is on Dirk in almost all close and late 4th quarter situations, especially considering Dallas does not have a great offensive minded wing player on the team.