Did Taco Tuesday have a negative effect on LeBron James' performances? Looking back at the Reddit investigation which explored the correlation

LA Lakers superstar LeBron James is known to have some fun from time to time on social media. One of the most well-known examples is James’ series of “Taco Tuesday” videos that gained popularity a few years ago. In the videos, James would showcase his excitement for his family’s taco nights. It was all light-hearted fun.

Nonetheless, one Reddit user decided to conduct an investigation back in 2020 to see how James’ taco consumption impacted his performance. Reddit user "AngryCentrist" shared the process of his investigation.

"I began by compiling LeBron’s career game logs (the population) and identifying the day of the week each game was played on," the user wrote.

Next, I pulled in his season averages (the control group) and selected the following 10 stat categories to get a comprehensive picture of his performance: Game Score, Points, Field Goal %, 3-Point %, Free Throw %, Total Rebounds, Assists, Steals, Blocks, and Turnovers.

"For each of these stats, I compared his average performance for each day of the week to his overall average for the corresponding season."

AngryCentrist then shared the findings of his investigation.

"Prior to his weekly taco tradition, LeBron’s Tuesday performance had the lowest rate of negative variances and the highest rate of positive variances. In the first two seasons of the Taco Tuesday era, James’ sacred day saw an +11% uptick in negative variances and a -17% drop in positive variances," the user wrote.

It is a silly statistic, but according to the user, Taco Tuesday negatively affected LeBron James' play.

For AngryCentrist’s complete study on LeBron James, click here.

LeBron James tried and failed to trademark “Taco Tuesday”

Los Angeles Lakers v Atlanta Hawks

Another fact about LeBron James’ series of Taco Tuesday videos is that he tried to trademark the phrase three years ago. However, according to ESPN, the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office denied the application filed by James' company LBJ Trademarks. The reasoning was that "Taco Tuesday" is "a commonplace term."

"The applied-for mark is a commonplace term, message, or expression widely used by a variety of sources that merely conveys an ordinary, familiar, well-recognized concept or sentiment message," the USPTO said.

James’ camp later told ESPN's Dave McMenamin that the only reason the trademark was filed was “to ensure LeBron cannot be sued for any use of 'Taco Tuesday.'”

However, this didn’t stop NBA fans from mocking LeBron James for the attempted trademark. Some fans recently recounted the failed trademark attempt. Some were shocked that it had already happened three years ago. Others continued to mock James, joking that he hasn’t eaten a taco since.