Leonard belongs among NBA’s elite
Kawhi Leonard needs no introduction to basketball diehards, but he remains a bit of a mystery to casual fans. They don’t know the backstory, they don’t see him in commercials or all over social media like LeBron James, Stephen Curry, Kevin Durant, James Harden, Anthony Davis or Giannis Antetokounmpo, even though Leonard, when healthy, is considered a peer of those top players.
So what’s the deal with Leonard and is he really an ultra-elite player?
To answer the latter question, yes, Leonard is a top-tier talent. It starts defensively, where he can smother opponents across multiple positions, generating tons of deflections, steals and blocks, while also rebounding at a high rate for a small forward. By most accounts, he is the NBA’s best perimeter defender and it has been that way for some time now. Leonard, who turned 27 late last month, won his first of two consecutive defensive player of the year awards at just 23 years old.
His emergence at the other end of the floor took a bit longer, but Leonard is one of the few players to increase his scoring average in each of the first six years of his career, going from 7.9 points a game as a rookie to 25.5 in 2016-17, when he finished third in MVP voting. The previous year he finished second, averaging 21.2 points a game for a 67-win club before Tim Duncan headed off into the sunset.
Leonard was supposed to succeed Duncan as a quiet, emotionless, generational talent who would lead the Spurs to further greatness. It didn’t happen.
Leonard was viewed as merely a marginal recruit coming out of Martin Luther King High School in Riverside, Calif., near Los Angeles. ESPN ranked him 56th in his class and 14th at his position and Leonard elected to stay close to home, choosing San Diego State over schools like Alabama State, Arizona, UCLA and USC. After being switched to power forward, Leonard immediately emerged as a standout defender, but showed little evidence of an outside shot or an ability to create off of the dribble during his two years with the Aztecs.
Unlike nearly all future MVP candidates, Leonard was not on anybody’s radar as a high lottery pick when he decided to declare for the draft and ended up going 15th to Indiana, who promptly dealt him for George Hill in a prearranged deal. The Raptors liked Leonard a lot, but not nearly enough to grab him with the fifth pick. His shooting issues and lack of size at the power forward position scared off NBA teams, but everything changed when Leonard started working with Spurs shooting coach Chip Engelland, who was confident Leonard’s shot could be moulded into a dangerous weapon.
He won’t move tickets or sell products like others of his ilk, but if winning is all that matters, he’ll fit in here just fine and Canadians will quickly get to know him. At least as much as he lets them.