Paul George is a superstar. Kawhi is occasionally compared to him.
But how did George get there? By being forced to become great, and in that, allowed to fail in order to learn to succeed.
His first two seasons, George had similar numbers to Kawhi with his role in the offense.
1st year FGA per game = 6.5 (Kawhi 6.3)
2nd year FGA per game = 9.7 (Kawhi 9.1)
George did have a higher usage, but for shots on goal, pretty close.
Then for last year, Granger was unexpectedly out. That forced George to have to take over the offense. Yes, the Pacers still had options like Hibbert (who was hampered by injury) and West and of course Hill, but George had to take on a bigger load, an unanticipated load. As a result, George's FGA went up 50%.
And for that first month or so, he was terrible. He failed. A lot.
George shot 38% those first 10 games. He game was criticized heavily, even some Pacer fans were convinced that he didn't have it. 13.5 points a game as a number 1 option.
, in the 16th and 17th games of the season, George hit the lowest of lows.
In a win against Sacramento, he went 2-11 for 4 points. He then followed that up in a loss to Golden State by going 0-7 and finishing with 0 points. Two games, four points.
That's how bad he struggled. But it was by going through the fire that he was able to be get better. The injury to Granger and Vogel's willingness to let George play and fail was the best thing that could have happened to him. After those two terrible games he hasn't looked back.
So what about Kawhi? Sure he has the third most FGA on the Spurs, but it's still about the same number of attempts that George was getting when he was a role player like Kawhi. And I'm sure quite a few of those attempts are transition or delayed transition, sometimes the product of his own steals or rebounds that he keeps. Without that, I wonder what his FGA in the halfcourt are, couldn't find it in quick looks at hoopdata, 82games and BR. I know that right now George gets about 30 more touches a game than Kawhi, but can't find George's touches last year. I do know that he is 5th on the Spurs for touches per game. And even if Kawhi was hitting 3s at the same rate as last year, his ppg would be up by 1 if applied to this season. Not so huge a difference.
I wonder if Kawhi even can take the next step without being allowed to fail, and fail a lot. With a lot of minutes, and a lot of touches in the halfcourt. , his points per halfcourt touch at .36 is right behind Duncan (.37) and better than Ginobili (.27) and Parker (.26). It would probably go bad. But it's what I think he needs.
Unfortunately, I don't don't know if Pop will be doing that. , probably not. Now you might think, "Oh, but Pop is a big experimenter! Just look at tonight when he had the Crap Quintet lose the lead in the second quarter!"
True, Pop experiments, but too often has refused experiments for too long that had the most potential for return, like his refusal to experiment with Splitter next to Duncan for two whole damn seasons.
And so, by keeping Kawhi's minutes low, and his touches low (in context), will Kawhi ever reach his potential?
I hope that Pop spends the rest of this regular season experimenting to finding ways to get Kawhi touches in the halfcourt that are more than him swinging the ball and standing around. A lot of touches. Like 50% more touches per game.
And by more minutes. The good thing about tonight was that Kawhi was allowed to play 37 minutes. Too bad it took a blowout to get it done, but if that's what it takes I hope the Spurs get blown out a lot more.
I don't disagree with the offense part. The Spurs offense is so well run that they can win a lot of games against bad teams just by out-executing all the crap teams. But when the Spurs face good defenses with athletes who have size (IND, POR, OKC, MIA) they have major issues. The more Kawhi can get touches, the better he'll be in those situations where the offense can't get good shots for Green, Marco and the like or when they just miss everything.
And if Kawhi can make progress as a ballhandler in the halfcourt (after being allowed to struggle), maybe Manu's Turnover Tsunamis can be minimized.
"It wouldn't be fair to Matty"
If his tendonitis isn't an issue, then I'd love for Kawhi to get a lot more touches. THe tendonitis is the only thing I worry about and hopefully Pop isn't limiting him because of that.
He also needs Heroball to give him the ball more. Pop needs to make sure Heroball gets the point.
IMO, Pop main concern isn't to get Kawhi more touches, but to keep the players healthy and growing as a team... he has called Kawhi's number specifically a few times, but it's really secondary to the big picture...
On the other hand, I love Kawhi but he still needs work on his offense... handles, footwork, a go-to move... it's not all there yet... I think he can get there, but it will take time...
The fact that they want Kawhi squatting at the 3 point line because of the personnel ruins a lot of his game. He's not anoutside threat and not Bowen 2.0 he needs to simplify his game, cutting to the basket and scoring easy
The primary difference between George and Leonard is shooting ability, tbh, George is one of the best outside shooters in the league, while Leonard is a mediocre outside shooter..
George is a better ball-handler and passer, but like OP said, that was aided by increase in usage in Indiana's offense..until this season, George had major issues with ball-handling, like Leonard..
Kawhi with a broken jump shot simply doesn't fit with Parker, and Pop has not added any wrinkles to solve this problem, tbh..it would make sense to increase Leonard's minutes with the 2nd unit, which will lead to more touches, but it seems like the coaching staff is more concerned with his knees than his role..
if his tendonosis was an issue, I doubt Pop would have had him log 37 minutes minutes in game that was over in 20 point blowout with what, a quarter and a half left?
My worry is that his handles, footwork, go-to move, etc, won't get there without more chances to fail at them and then learn from the failure. Only so much can happen in the rare practices the Spurs get, and the work Leonard puts in on his own time.
I'm not saying that Kawhi will be Paul George, whose scoring ability in college was compared to people like McGrady, but I am saying that I don't think Kawhi will be any better than the role player he is now without being given the opportunity and responsibility to be more.
Just as George being forced to be more with Granger going down.
Whatever Kawhi's potential is, I don't think he'll get there fast enough at his current rate with his current role. Instead of being month to month improvement like George where now he's a top 5 player, Leonard is looking at a season-to-season improvements.
Objective, how would Leonard go about this though? I'm not really knowledgeable in the game of babll, tbh. Would he just go iso every time or???
There's nothing new about the 1st unit... it's going to be TP/TD. Pop knows that's where his bread is buttered and he won't really mess with that. We already have two bigs in the paint with that lineup, so Kawhi is going to have to make outside shots...
As Harlem said, perhaps in the 2nd unit he could get some more run, but the 2nd unit right now is integrating new guys and trying to find an iden y of it's own, so I doubt it's going to happen there...
I know a lot of people here think a lot of what the Spurs do is run on "automatic", but there's a fairly serious balancing act happening every night... who gets the touches, why, certain pecking order, etc...
Except, Leonard does not appear to better than he was last year, & his great finals (with a healthy Spurs team) performance have yet to translate to this season.
It would just be Pop forcing the ball into Leonard's hands. Every kind of play, but just more. Sure Kawhi gets his one post-up a game, and maybe gets a ballhandling role in the halfcourt, but he needs more. It would probably be made easier by more minutes, and more minutes with the second unit. Pop would have to call more plays for Leonard. A lot more ball handling responsibility for Leonard. More pick and roll. He would likely have a rough time, missed shots, bad shots, turnovers, bad passes, etc. But suffering through that would hopefully get him better at all facets of the game.
And if it means less touches for Parker and Duncan, honestly it's better to lose some battles in order to win a war.
Just make him play 48 mpg
That will come once TP and TD are not longer option 1 and 2 in the starting lineup... It's not happening right now.
IMO, anyways
Why isn't it though? I don't see the Spurs winning a le anytime soon so why hold Leonard back? I for one would like to see if Leonard can lead a team once Tim and Manu are gone. If Pop waits too long then I see it really hurting the rebuild mode.
That's why I don't think Kawhi can make the next step on a healthy Spurs team (just as George probably would've stayed a low efficiency role playing defender had Granger stayed healthy).
Because with a healthy team, it's a lot easier to keep the status quo.
it took over two full seasons for Pop to try Splitter out next to Duncan as a starter in consecutive games. And that wasn't health induced, Diaw and Blair were healthy enough, but thankfully Pop finally tried it.
The status quo will be to play if safe. More or less the same with the starters, and limiting Kawhi's minutes to be on the safe side with his knees keeping him from getting more with the second unit.
I am skeptical to how Kawhi gets any better than he is now with the status quo.
Kawhi's not built to be the man anyway, he's more of a Pippen/Iguodala type where he's at his best playing off of a dominant scorer.
Being 28 secs away from another le probably reinforced the belief the status quo is good enough...
I just think Pop isn't really focused or worried about it... IMO, he knows Kawhi will keep improving (even if ever so slightly) because of gained experience, more games under his belt, better understanding of what the Spurs need in the system, etc etc etc... I just don't think he's going to force the issue, because he would need to break something that, by a lot of measures, it's working well...
I'm sure that's their mindset, and it would be a mistake imo. Kind of like how they refused to improve the roster after 07. Each season is it's own season, the status quo of one might not be good enough the next after the league adjusts and their own players improve/fade with age.
I stopped stressing about that, tbh (well, except when Ginger is getting burn)... I'll just enjoy the journey and when the time comes they'll either be good enough or not...
The Spurs aren't trying to build superstar players only to lose them when they become free agents and want superstar money. The Spurs want to mold players that could be superstars into really good starters who aren't really aware of just how much they should be making on other teams. That's in the best interest of the Spurs. If Leonard wants to be a superstar, he's going to have to do it himself.
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