The San Antonio Spurs will enter the 2014-15 season as the defending champions and deepest team in the league, with as great an opportunity as any in their franchise’s history to repeat as champions. Their entire team from last year was retained by general manager R.C. Buford this offseason, plus draft pick Kyle Anderson with the last pick in the 2014 NBA Draft, giving the Spurs a solid 13 or so players on the roster (depending on how you feel about Jeff Ayres or Austin Daye). Head coach Gregg Popovich will again attempt to limit his players’ minutes to under 30 per game to utilize his depth and keep his starters healthy for the playoffs, as three bench players last season averaged double figures in points per game. Tim Duncan, future Hall of Famer and one of the greatest players in the game’s history, will return for his 17th season, joining fellow-future Hall of Famers Tony Parker, Manu Ginobili, and Popovich. As in last years’ playoffs with the San Antonio Spurs, though, their upside as a team and title favorite lie with their fourth-year small forward, Kawhi Leonard.
Kawhi was supposed to break out last season, whatever that means in the San Antonio Spurs system. His stats all increased across the board but not substantially. A fractured hand kept him out for 14 games in the middle of the season but he set his career high by appearing in 66 games, and played his customary stout defense while doubling as the third-leading scorer behind Parker and Duncan. His three-point percentage stayed remarkably consistent in his three-year career (from 37.6% to 37.4 to 37.9 last year) and he still didn’t crack the “10 shots per game” mark, but he contributed 6.2 rebounds, two assists, 1.7 steals, and 0.8 blocks a game to go with his 12.8 PPG.
Under Pop, he averaged 29.1 minutes per game last season, but developed his game in subtle ways despite the minute restrictions. He improved his two-point field goal percentage to 57.9 as he became more involved in the offense, and increased his usage rate while sacrificing corner-threes. His free throw and three-point attempt rates both fell slightly from his second season and he attempted more long-twos (between 16 feet and the three-point line), which could indicate his increased involvement within the Spurs offense. Where in his rookie or sophomore seasons he was more of a catch-and-shoot player who played off of Parker’s penetration or the general ball movement, in 2013-14 Kawhi created more offense for himself – even from the three-point line, as his percentage of assisted threes fell 10% from ’12-13.
The Spurs were completely locked in entering the 2013-14 playoffs, winning 19-straight games down the stretch and posting an undefeated March. They lost the last two games of the regular season but finished with the league’s best record at 62-20 and claimed the top seed in the Western Conference playoffs. A tough, seven-game opening series against the Dallas Mavericks was balanced by a five game affair with the Portland Trail Blazers, where three wins came by 15 or more points.
As I briefly covered with the Oklahoma City Thunder, San Antonio’s Western Conference Finals matchup against the Thunder entered Game 5 tied at two games apiece, with Serge Ibaka’s return having swung the series in their two home games. The Spurs stepped up and responded to the Thunder momentum by playing a complete, efficient, and dominant 48 minutes of basketball that, in typical Popovich-ian fashion, featured a total team effort. OKC were led, as always, by Kevin Durant and Russell Westbrook, who each finished with over 20 points, but outside of Reggie Jackson’s 11 points, no other player contributed more than six. San Antonio, as always, finished with six players in double figures and a 55-26 advantage in bench scoring, and cruised to a 117-89 win.
In the deciding-Game Six, Kawhi Leonard went to work early and established his aggressive intentions, making three of the Spurs’ first four field goals and scoring six first-quarter points on five shots. He finished with 17 points, 11 rebounds, 4 assists, and 2 turnovers in the Spurs’ 112-107 overtime win, and led the team in minutes, usage rate, and shot attempts, taking seven more shots than the next-closest Spur. He shot 8-21 from the field and 1-5 from three but was aggressive on offense while limiting Durant to 31 points (on 25 shots and in 52 minutes) with an offensive rating (points scored per 100 possessions) of 94. A one-game sample of any rate statistic is too tiny to draw conclusions from, but Kawhi’s defense on KD also forced him into seven turnovers and kept him scoreless in overtime. Leonard was dialed in from the opening tip and played a tough, two-way game, showing glimpses of taking over as the primary offensive weapon for the loaded San Antonio Spurs in their biggest game of the season. A few games later, in Miami, he’d be even better.
The first two games of the NBA Finals against the Miami Heat would split in San Antonio, and featured the Kawhi Leonard: Regular Season Version. Game One will probably go down in NBA lore as “LeBron’s Cramp Game”, where the AT&T Center’s air conditioning units ceased functioning and temperatures on the court reached into the 90’s. The Spurs trailed by four points entering the 4th but put up a 36-point quarter while LeBron James went to the bench with dehydration and muscle cramping issues.
James came out possessed in the second game victory and dropped a 35-point (on 22 shots), 10-rebound performance, fouling out Kawhi Leonard in 32 minutes. Kawhi’s totals in the first two Finals games? 18 points, 4 rebounds, and 2 assists, on 14 field goal attempts, 4-6 shooting from three, and only four free throws. The talk entering Game Three in Miami was that the Heat could very well have swept the first two games in San Antonio had it not been for their malfunctioning AC system, and the Spurs would need a throwback Duncan, Parker, or Ginobili game to avoid going back to San Antonio down three games to one. Instead, “Game Six Kawhi” asserted himself on the national stage and took it to LeBron much the way he did Durant in the WCF.
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| Kawhi Leonard 2012-13 shot chart, courtesy of www.nyloncalculus.com |
Kawhi Leonard dominated Game Three from the first quarter on, dropping 16 points (on 5 shots!) in a blistering first quarter outburst that saw the Spurs jump out to a 41-25 lead. In almost 40 minutes he finished with 29 points, 4 boards, 2 assists, 2 steals, 2 blocks, and a turnover, shooting 10-13 overall, 3-6 from three, and 6-7 at the free throw stripe. He again led the Spurs in shot attempts and, despite the sample size, had a 171 offensive rating, and the Spurs won by 19. His defense on LeBron resulted in 22 points on 14 shots, with 7 assists and 7 turnovers in a losing effort. Leonard was the best player on the floor and walked off the court to Popovich’s fisticuffs, as the coach was visibly fired up by his small forward’s star performance.
The final two games of the 2014 Finals resembled the pivotal Game Three from San Antonio’s perspective, with Game Four decided by 21 points and the closeout, fifth game by 17. Kawhi’s stat totals from his last two games of the Finals? 42 points, 24 rebounds, 5 assists, and 4 turnovers, on 14-22 shooting from the field, 4-7 from three, and 10-12 on FT’s. He finished with 14 rebounds, 3 steals, and 3 blocks in Game Four as the Spurs took both road games from Miami, frustrating the Heat and ending the LeBron James/Chris Bosh/Dwyane Wade dynasty after four seasons (with two titles in four Finals appearances!). Kawhi Leonard was awarded the NBA Finals MVP (the Bill Russell Award) and became the third-youngest winner in NBA history.
Perhaps those preseason predictions of a 2013-14 breakout for Kawhi were a bit premature, as he saved his peak play for the last three games of the season. That they occurred in the NBA Finals, in blowout Spurs victories, and against the best player on the planet could either be more, or less, impressive, depending on your perspective. He outplayed Kevin Durant and LeBron James in Conference and NBA Finals games, but did so as part of a deep and structured system, where he was able to score in single digits in back-to-back games to begin the Finals. It wasn’t until the pressure and questions began to mount that Kawhi asserted himself for the Spurs and took on the offensive burden, and his on-ball defense is only aided by having smart help defenders like Timmy and Tiago Splitter to watch his back. A 29-point, 171-offensive rating, performance was the anomaly, from a player who only averaged 12.8 points on 9.8 shots per game over the course of the regular season.
Kawhi Leonard will never have the same offensive responsibilities with the San Antonio Spurs as Durant with Oklahoma City or Carmelo Anthony with the New York Knicks, for example, as long as Popovich and Buford are still with the organization. On the other hand, few scorers in the league play any defense, and Kawhi is much more competent on the offensive end than players like KD, ‘Melo, or Steph Curry are defensively. He’s valuable due to his “3 and D” skills alone, as there aren’t many players in the league who can shoot and defend at an above-average rate, but his Finals scoring outbursts denote untapped offensive potential lurking within Leonard. The question is if that scoring ability will manifest itself on a sustained basis during the 2014-15 season (or beyond?), or in another lengthy playoff run when the Spurs need it the most.
Again in the preseason, the Kawhi breakout conversations have begun. Expecting him to develop in the traditional sense and increase his scoring average substantially every season is probably unrealistic, given his personality, overall skills, coach, culture, and organizational structure. Regular season stats are just about useless under Coach Popovich, but particularly to a player like Kawhi who prefers to impact the game in ways beyond scoring points. At this rate, it will be years until he’s ready (not "able") to reach the 18 or 20 point per game threshold over an 82-game season, especially if he’s kept under 30 minutes a night.
Instead the development will be incremental for Kawhi Leonard, and the opportunities to take over and lead the team as its best player will also slowly increase as Duncan, Parker, and Ginobili grow older. The Spurs’ infrastructure and system relies on the teams’ incredible depth to spread the minutes and scoring duties around, without over-relying on any one player.
There is maybe no more pointless conversation in the NBA universe than which Spur is most important to the teams’ success. Tony Parker is the leader of San Antonio’s motion offense, while Tim Duncan captains a top-four defense, and Manu Ginobili heads a bench that regularly drops 50 points per game. Gregg Popovich is the architect that transitioned the Spurs offense from a half-court approach to the wide-open, European style of play, and R.C. Buford is the guy who “buys the groceries” and provides Pop with his toys. But Kawhi Leonard is the future of the San Antonio Spurs, the best two-way player on the roster, and, from his recent dominance in the last three games of the NBA Finals, the 2014 Finals MVP, who is capable of going toe-to-toe with the best players in the world and uplifting the San Antonio Spurs in the process.
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