Raptors’ Leonard gets all-NBA nod
Joins Lowry, DeRozan, Bosh and Carter on elite list
MILWAUKEE — It has been a fun and exhilarating ride with Kawhi Leonard this season, a wildly entertaining journey of jawslackening plays and moments with a style that is somehow dominant and understated at the same time.
The Raptors forward is unrelenting, physically strong and strong-willed, and the most shocking thing is even he didn’t know if he’d get to that level again.
Coming off a nine-game 2017-18 season, with real questions about his injured leg and what the longer-term implications would be for him and his new franchise, what Leonard was able to do in the regular season was nothing short of stunning.
He was rewarded for it Thursday, being named to the all-NBA second team in balloting among 100 media members who cover the league on a regular basis. Leonard averaged career highs of 26.6 points and 7.3 rebounds in the 60 games he played.
It is the third time Leonard has been honoured — he was named to the first team in 2016 and 2017 — and he joins Kyle Lowry, DeMar DeRozan, Chris Bosh and Vince Carter as the only Raptors ever named to an all-NBA team.
Not bad for a guy who treated the regular season as 82 warm-up games for the playoffs.
But while it is a nice honour for Leonard and reaffirms his stature in the game, what we are seeing in the post-season is nextlevel excellence after an outstanding regular season.
After being among the six elite forwards over 82 games, Leonard has arguably been the best player of any stripe in the playoffs. His regular season was just a prelude, a scene-setter.
“It’s about as good play as you can see in the playoffs, on a historical or leaguewide level,” Toronto coach Nick Nurse said as the Raptors prepared for Thursday’s Game 5 of the Eastern Conference final here. “I sensed it, that it was coming, but we don’t know until we see it and we don’t know what it’s going to look like. But, again, he’s in a great frame of mind.
“He wants to win, first and foremost. His desire’s awesome and his spirit and the fight that he’s got inside him is all great, which kind of leads up to this level that he’s playing at.”
It is that the other side of Leonard, the one no fan sees, the one that’s kept hidden from even the all-consuming media, that impresses others the most.
Marc Gasol, who knew Leonard from many an epic battle when they were in Memphis and San Antonio for all those years, became Leonard’s teammate in February and keeps discovering different layers to his teammate.
“What I’ve seen?” Gasol contemplated here Tuesday morning. “How vocal he was when the situation was required and I really respected that. When things get tough and guys need to be vocal, especially the type of message they send — it doesn’t surprise me, but it was really good to see.
“You only know about those sort of things, first, when you go through struggles with somebody and, second, when you play with them.”
That has been one of the constant comments about Leonard since he arrived in Toronto in the seismic trade involving DeRozan, an iconic Raptor.
Talk to teammates, talk to coaches, talk to management, talk to support staff and the story is the same: Leonard is engaged and engaging, willing to learn and listen and be coached, he’s talkative and demonstrative and a leader in his own fashion.
Too much was made of his personality before he got to Toronto, a reputation built on the opinions, often ill-informed, of people who watched him only from afar.
To those who interact with him every day in what matters, he’s been a consummate professional and A-grade teammate.
“It’s amazing to me,” Nurse said, “whether we’re in the huddle or in the locker-room or the film room, he’s always locked in on what the coaching staff is saying and I think that is an interesting thing about him. He’s very coachable, he’s focused and pays attention.”