Kawhi Leonard, the NBA’s reigning Defensive Player of the Year, is almost universally considered the most dominant defender in basketball. He’s the San Antonio Spurs’ leading scorer, and Gregg Popovich recently confirmed that the 24-year-old “has arrived.”
There’s no more room left for debate: Leonard is absolutely elite. But in just his fifth professional season, is he already deserving of a comparison to the greatest player ever? Someone who would know seems to think so.
When asked by Jeff McDonald of the San Antonio Express-News about the energy Leonard expends on each side of the ball, Popovich said his young star “has the ability” to make a two-way influence similar to Jordan’s.
“It’s about how good a player do you want to be? He has the ability to do what a Michael Jordan did at both ends. I don’t mean he’s Michael Jordan, but Michael played both ends of the floor. Kobe does the same thing, when he so desires. You think about the best players in the league, they’re not two-way players. He wants to do that, and he stays after it every day. Chip Engelland and Chad Forcier do a great job developing him. He works hard at it. We’re working him in the pick and roll now, so I can give him the ball like I do Manu.”
Calm down, folks. Note the qualifiers here.
Popovich isn’t saying that Leonard has reached Jordan’s overall caliber. A sizable contingent of basketball fans are still reluctant to embrace the 2014 Finals MVP’s rise to legitimate superstardom. While that hesitance is wildly outdated and speaks to how troublingly little many value the worth of defense, it also suggests the consensus that Leonard isn’t even basketball’s best player right now, let alone its best ever.
The three-time Coach of the Year is merely acknowledging that Leonard has the tools to be the most impactful performer on both ends of the floor any given night. How many of his peers are capable of that exalted status – at the moment or in league history?
That the list is so small indicates just how great a player Leonard has become. And for the purposes of this discussion, it even confirms Popovich’s take that he deserves to be mentioned in the same specific class as Jordan.
(Via San Antonio Express-News)
Now Watch: Is Stephen Curry About To Have The Greatest NBA Season Ever?
[protected-iframe id=”ffda0c8d4541c5237e9fc111ea26e727-60970621-49119169″ info=”//players.brightcove.net/4262107416001/b45b1428-6c26-45a8-bb7e-1f131454c59b_default/index.html?videoId=4598521182001″ width=”650″ height=”366″ style=”width: 650px;height: 366px;” webkitallowfullscreen=”” mozallowfullscreen=”” allowfullscreen=””]
