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From the chart teams must really be running at him ion the corners
he started his Spur career out slow from the 3 but eventually developed a money corner 3
he was extremely hesitant to take a non-corner 3
since coming back from the hand injury hes almost exclusively shot from the wings and moved away from the corners
and hes been extremely confident in taking them in rhythm and even throwing in a few jabstep/stepback 3s
heres his shot chart from last year
heres since hes been back from injury
now I know Spurtalk will throw out their favorite world sample size
but you can see in the 58 games hes played last year he attempted a total of 56 non-corner 3s shooting 21% on those attempts
in his 7 games back from injury so far hes attempted 16 non-corner 3s going for 56%
if he keeps up this pace of attempts, then through 58 games he would have shot roughly 133 non-corner 3s, nearly 3 times the attempts of last year
I seriously doubt keep the 56% rate up but whatever happened to get him out of the corners is extremely good for the Spurs
a big limitation to playing in the corners is that you have no room to operate
its why a big part of Pop's defensive philosophy is to keep guys out of the middle and force baseline
by him adapting to the wing spots on the field it allows him to use his dribble pullup game and gives him better driving opportunities
its a big reason why I believe hes scored more since hes come back from the hand injury
From the chart teams must really be running at him ion the corners
Nice post. Definitly agree with this. I also think, with all the scoring options on the Spurs, I think he gets somewhat overlooked by the defense. Also, there's more trust/confidence from Pop. Offensively, he's playing more freely. He's gone from having a red light - shoot only where I tell you to shoot, to a yellow light - more options, but still stick to what we practice, to almost a full on green light - here's the ball, create, do whatever it is you need to do. It's great to see him grow into his expanding role, and I really do think we're still at the beginning, with a lot more to come.
Not only is he shooting threes above the break, but he's doing it in motion. They are running actual curl plays for him to shoot above the break, like they would for Patty, or last year, for Neal. I mentioned it in the Chicago game thread.
I guess this is what they worked on when he was out with his hand, but healed enough to shoot.
Very well said. I also think Kawhi's more confident in himself this year, and more decisive too. It's like his decision making is a lot quicker than it was (not saying that it was slow in the first place), like once he has the ball he's much more decisive on what he wants to do. Now, I have a question that's off topic but sort of related to OP's post. I've been a Spurfan since the 02-03 season, so I've never seen Sean ****** play. How was he as a shooter? Was he a corner 3pt shooter or was he like this season's post injury Kawhi?
He looks much more confident lately but I'd like the coaches develop Leonard effectively as a post player than a shooter.
His shot comes and goes, the Spurs have a lot of corner 3's shooters with Danny, Beli, even Manu, and Kawhi can help improve the low-post outlook.
He's extremely efficient on his low-post moves.
"Kawhi is a bad man." He's been playing a great all around game. Fill it up Kawhi!
The arc on his shot looks noticeably better, tbh, in addition to the confidence(he's no longer hesitating to take spot-up 3s like he was earlier in the season)..
That's why I dont understand how a hand injury made him get better shooting tbh...
his fingers are still taped together
you would expect shooting to drop
not for him to shoot at an elite rate from a place hes been a career 20% shooter from
1. As you said, he is very unlikely to maintain anything near a 56% success rate over the long term.
2. His career numbers for non-corner 3's are much better than 20%.
The most interesting thing from your OP is the distribution of his 3 point shots. Last season, about 2/3 of his 3s were from the corners, while this year it's about half. The trend, as you noted, continues away from a preponderance of corner 3s. That has to be deliberate.
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