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I'll take that kind of night with 59% shooting from Leonard. Great defensive performance too.
This morning and last night, talking heads mentioned Westbrook as primed for an MVP trophy. They said so based on last year and his first game's stats. Meanwhile, Leonard marginalized a former league MVP on defense and scored 32 points on 59% shooting in the process. I'll take our MVP and 2 -way player over theirs any day.
Take a look:
Westbrook:
33 pts
2 rebounds
10 assissts
2 steals
Leonard:
32 pts
8 rebounds
3 steals
2 blocks
I'll take that kind of night with 59% shooting from Leonard. Great defensive performance too.
10 assists fail
I think consistency is the issue, offensively at least. Once the overall variance in his game declines you'll see Leonard in the MVP talk as well.
Westbrook has already proven he can consistently put up performances like that. Kawhi needs to do the same before people start putting him in MVP discussions. Do you really expect people to start considering him a serious MVP candidate after one game?
Kawhi needs to show the whole season even the whole game before he can be compared to the greats in the league. Much of his accolades are based on his potential. Hopefully he will meet expectations this year.
Serious question though. Why can't Kawhi finish at the rim like Westbrook? There are times he has a path to the rim and instead of exploding for a dunk we see that awkward layup. Much of his game is still played below the rim.
He won't contend for MVP on this current Spurs team, obviously..Aldridge and Duncan are still big names, and Pop would never allow it, realistically..he won't see the minutes or usage rate to compete..
At least he has this, though..
The answer to your question is that Kawhi is kind of stiff. That stiff movement is the cause of a lot of his weaknesses on offense. But with that being said, it's amazing that he can still dominate with it haha
Right on, brother. Kawhi MVP.
Kawhi is not going to win the MVP.. And we don't need him to.
That should be the least of this boards worries anyways.
I drafted Russ over Kawhi in my fantasy league (Leonard got taken a couple of picks before me in the second round). While Kawhi's performance was superior to Westbrook's last night, I think Russ will get the chance to put up those types of numbers much more often. Same is true for the MVP voting.
Russ will have the opportunities to put up those numbers on a nightly basis, Kawhi won't. I mean Kawhi played great and people on here are complaining that he took too many shots (not sure who they think should have gotten the shots instead). To put that into perspective Kawhi had 22 shots last night, that's how many shots Westbrook averaged last season (albeit that was without Durant). I would be surprised if Kawhi gets more than 15-16 shots a game (he averaged just under 13 last season and just under 14 the final 2 months of the season).
So yea you have 1 guy who'll be lucky to average 15 shots a game and another guy who'll be getting close to 20.
Imagine if Leonard was being guarded by Parker last night. He would have had 30 by halftime
Our 2 way player, I would take him over Westy any day, as well
Taking kawhi over Westbrook an easy call? Westbrook isn't a slouch on defense you know.. he often chooses to cover the other teams best player in clutch time. And he can not be stopped by anyone on the other end, plus his court vision and inclusion of teammates.
I don't know. Westbrook is more dominant on offense than Kawhi is on defense. And that's saying a lot.
Itd be a close call.
The problem with numbers like that is they disregard the overall effect the player has on the team vs what he could have if he did things differently. If Lebron shot the ball every trip down the floor, he'd have amazing numbers, but his team would lose. RW's team will lose because RW is too ball dominant. Sure he has assists, but who else on the team does? Why do we keep going back to this 1st grade about sharing assists = sharing the ball?
Also, one game in and there's already MVP talk. You ers are Jonesing for some play.
Leonard came out of college known as a great defender who wasn't much of a shooter, but has worked on that to such a degree that his career 3pt accuracy is significantly better than Westbrook's: 36.8% compared to 30.8%. To me, Russ has two weaknesses: shot selection and on court demeanor towards his teammates. The first one is obvious, but slightly less significant to me... The second problem he has acknowledged numerous times, and is still working on, but let's face it, if Durant leaves in Free agency because he feels that Russ is too ball dominant, where does that leave OKC? They'd be a borderline 6th/7th seed in the west, and Russ would have huge stats, and they wouldn't contend for a le. Kawhi's personality, like Duncan's, would rarely be a negative factor in terms of team camaraderie-- but Westbrook's just might.
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