Kawhi Leonard: Believing the hype

Kawhi Leonard and Gregg Popovich, head coach of the San Antonio Spurs warm up at practice

If you were to look at Leonard keeping Popovich’s statements in mind, you would be hard-pressed to understand Popovich. Leonard’s collegiate career wasn’t spectacular and he didn’t come in with a very impressive resume. His wingspan and large hands may have gotten some people to make references to Julius Erving, but in terms of flair and skill, he still had a long way to go. He averaged close to 10 rebounds per game in college, and had proven himself to be a versatile defensive player, but his offence was far from pretty. He shot under 30% from beyond the arc, and all his offence was mostly limited to transition opportunities. The point is that if Spurs and Popovich were looking for the heir to Tim Duncan’s throne, one was expecting a better resume.

And that is where one can go wrong about Kawhi Leonard. Leonard may not be the most explosive run-and-gun player, but he sure has demonstrated a basketball intelligence and aptitude that belies his age. His defensive versatility allows him to guard players as varied as from LeBron James to Stephen Curry to even a Zach Randolph. He is amongst the best in the game when it comes to isolation defensive sets, but also has shown the strength and the awareness to guard stronger and bigger players on the low block.

He is at his best when he feeds off his 7’3” arm-span and 11 ½ inch hands to great effect in the defensive end. His length allows him to haul down rebounds, affect and intercept loose passes and earn some easy steals by playing the passing lanes. Add to that his ability in the open court, one can easily see that his defence has led to many easy transition buckets for the Spurs. He is quite easily the modern day Bruce Bowen, in terms of his defensive intellect and ability to shut down the biggest offensive threats; maybe what Spurs were missing in the past few years.

While he may be seen as the new-age Bruce Bowen on the defensive end, Leonard has done much better on the offensive end. His gym-rat mentality has paid him huge dividends, as he seems to have developed a very efficient offensive game. His shooting has gone up quite a few notches as he is shooting close to 40% from beyond the arc and close to 50% from the field. He also finished the season averaging 1.9 steals/game and managed to rake in over 7 rebounds per game. The most important thing is that Leonard seems to understand and relish his role better than maybe any 21-year-old in the league. He understands that with Parker, Ginobili and Duncan in the line-up he isn’t required to handle the bulk of the scoring. His role is to stretch the floor with his perimeter shooting, read situations and trust his execution. And unlike Danny Green, he has developed into a far better all-round player. If you run him off the three-point line, he is quite adept at beating you off the dribble and getting to the rim. His poterizing dunk on Mike Miller is maybe the best example of his supreme athleticism and ability to finish at the rim.

However, his greatest strength lies in his temperament, as he just seems to come up big in the clutch moments, making vital plays be it on the defensive and or on the offensive end of the floor. While people may still say that his missed a free throw in the dying seconds of Game-6 may have cost Spurs the Championship, it is also vital to know that in the last two games of the Finals, Leonard averaged 21 points, 13.5 rebounds, and two steals while going 17-31 from the field. Better numbers than anyone else in the Spurs team.