Pau Gasol Tried To Flop After Kawhi Leonard Stole The Ball Away From Him

There are two ways to take this video. The first is the less fun interpretation, one which chastises Pau Gasol for flopping during a game. Gasol, in an attempt to draw a foul, threw his hands in the air when he realized the basketball was taken out of his hands by someone. He probably felt kind of silly when he realized that the ball was “stolen” by his own teammate, Kawhi Leonard. But if you are the kind of person who hates flops and thinks they are the worst thing to happen to the game of basketball, you are absolutely going to look at it this way.

The second and far more fun way to watch this video is to appreciate that Leonard is so good at stealing the ball away from people that he’s getting bored. Being the best on-ball defender on the planet has come too easy to Leonard, so he’s decided to elevate his game and just steal the ball from teammates. It does not count as an official steal, but Leonard got a layup out of this, so whatever.

I am going to look at it through the second lens, because this is hilarious. Watching Leonard play defense is probably something everyone on the Spurs’s roster enjoys, so it’s nice for him to show him how good he is on that side of the ball every now and then.