They believe the best mismatch is at PF as well. However, they think it will prevent him from wearing down and that he will take less of a beating. They analyzed every minute he was on the floor over and over. When he had the ball he was exerting much more energy, bouncing off people, taking bumps, getting knocked down, etc. When he played PF he had many more opportunities to rest and exerted a lot less energy getting open. Quite often it was a quick move to get open and then a pump fake or jump hook. When he did go out to the perimeter it was pretty easy to get away from a PF who wasn't used to going out there and wasn't used to being brushed off by a pick. He exerted less energy getting away from 4's than 3's. It will be situational and they likely wont match him up against any thugs who are at the 4. But they do plan on playing him more at PF. That coupled with less minutes should lengthen his career.
Another reason for doing this is that his jumper sucks. We analyzed his jumper and it's broke...it was his worst postseason ever for his jumper. His feet weren't square, his balance was off, he reverted back to fading away on a lot of shots he didn't need to. It's very easy to see for the coaches and it would be easy for Lebron to see if he worked with our coaches this summer. Instead he only works with DJ. DJ has him shooting a shit ton of shots, but he isn't using video or other tools to fix what's wrong...he's just reinforcing it. We need camp to start fast so we can show him what's up. He's such a stubborn ass at times. He's got his own trainer in Mike(he's awesome), he has his own coach in Damon(he's not)...won't let any of the real coaches work with him. So we won't have much time to break his shot down and fix it.
23% from 3FG (worst ever)
31% long jumpers (lowest since 2008)
36% midrange
30% short-range (lowest since 2007)