How Could Kawhi Leonard Be So Skilled Offensively With Hands The Size Of Shaq’s?

Kawhi Leonard
Getty Image

Kawhi Leonard is the league’s most accurate three-point shooter. He’s one of basketball’s several best spot-up shooters, a burgeoning pick-and-roll playmaker, and ranks behind only Steph Curry and J.J. Redick – perhaps the game’s preeminent marksmen – in terms of points per offensive possession.

The reigning Defensive Player of the Year isn’t anything close to a one-way player. Leonard is almost every bit as devastating with the ball in his hands as he is defending it, a terrifying reality for the rest of the league as he finally embarks on his playing prime – and one especially impressive given his laughably large mitts.

Many still believe the reason Shaquille O’Neal, and other behemoths like him, struggle from the free throw line and as shooters in general is that their massive hands over-grip the ball. How much touch can a player really generate when his shooting hand makes the rock look like an orange?

Leonard, though, doesn’t care for that type of logic. Here’s he and O’Neal going hand-to-hand in Toronto on Thursday night.

Reminder: Shaq is at least five inches taller and approximately 90 pounds heavier than Leonard. Crazy.

The 24-year-old, basically, is still only scratching the surface – and with hands like this, he seems bound to Klaw through it soon enough.

×