FanPost

The Disease of More, Kawhi Leonard

Kawhi Leonard is a force. He's quiet and hardworking, and as Spurs fans we instinctively are drawn to that winning formula. Defensively, he may be the best in the league. He has the ability to control critical playoff games solely from the defensive end, and it's truly remarkable. Maybe there was a pre-Robinson player, but since I've been watching the Spurs, San Antonio has never had a guy as elite as Kawhi at the small forward position. Last year, he took what the Spurs system offered and in the playoffs, San Antonio played a level of basketball that I believe was unparalleled, climaxing in the Finals.

However, "The Disease of More."

After you have some success, you want more, more, more. I call it the disease of more, but what you get is less of what you did to help the team. Once someone gets too far away from the pattern, you got to bring them back in.
-- Pat Riley

Coach Popovich is doing the complete opposite of that with Leonard, and it's hurting the team as well as Kawhi. I'm not a fan of the offense stopping so Kawhi can post up. The Spurs are at their best when the ball doesn't stick. Pop is getting away from that in the early part of this season as he attempts to will Kawhi into something he's not: a top ten offensive talent.

Kawhi doesn't have the athleticism to be a Kobe-in-his-prime type of offensive player, yet he is taking many Kobe-in-his-prime type of shots this season. He lacks the jumping ability to truly dominate his position offensively. Specifically, his jumper doesn't have the necessary height to it to get it off comfortably on a consistent basis. Because of this, he makes 1.5 too many fakes when he posts up, and the result is an off-balance, poor shot.

I assume Pop's argument for pushing Leonard to forget about the 'Big Three' and become the 'Big One' is that the 'Big Three' are 'older than dirt' and a transition has to take place at some point. But this championship window is still wide-open and sacrificing wins and team chemistry at this point of the franchise's arc just feels like an inappropriate risk.

I'm fearful that I mistook Kawhi's quiet demeanor for humbleness. Tim is humble. Tony is humble. Manu is humble. David was humble. Avery was humble. Sean was humble. What Kawhi is doing is not humble, in my opinion. It began with his agent throwing the Spurs organization under the bus for not offering Kawhi the max. Obviously, it makes more sense to wait and give him the max later for salary cap reasons. It will give the Spurs their best opportunity to surround Kawhi with talent if Tim and Manu retire after this season. Anyone can see that. It doesn't even take intelligence. It's just common sense. But his agent decided to go to the press with ridiculous, illogical thoughts and I found it very unsettling.

What's troublesome is that it's difficult for me to separate that event with what is transpiring on the court. Whenever Kawhi scores a lot of points, he tells the media something like, "Well, I got shots." Implying that if he always took a lot of shots, he'd always score a lot of points. And more than that, that he wants a lot more shots. He's pretty sure that Pop promised him more shots and hasn't really come through.

I think Kawhi's ego has steadily grown, even if his off-court personality has not. While Pat Riley's 'Disease of More' has definitely not taken hold of the entire team, I think Kawhi is showing the symptoms and rather than forcing him to take his medicine, Pop is telling him to stay out later and party harder.

Here are some stats from nba.com that support my eyeball theory. I'll give you the statistical category, followed by Kawhi's stats for last year and then this year. For example: PPG, 12.8, 14.9. So he's scoring 2.1 more points per game this year than he did last year. That seems like a good thing, right? Well, it's not.

Pace, 97.23, 94.79. When Kawhi's on the floor, the team's pace has slowed as compared to last season. I assume this is due to the, 'Let's stop the offense so Kawhi can post up for eight seconds as everyone stands around and watches.' What are we, the Knicks?

eFG%, 57.6, 50.1. TS%, 60.2, 54.5. As Kawhi takes more shots outside the Spurs' system, his shooting percentages have taken a hit. I don't think this is a shooting slump. This is a reflection of Kawhi taking worse, more difficult shots.

AST/TO, 1.66, 1.26. AST Ratio, 14.6, 11.6. TO Ratio, 8.8, 9.2. His assist to turnovers ratio is significantly worse and his number of assists per possession are down. He's taking more shots, passing less often and turning the ball over with greater frequency. That's a bad thing.

USG %, 18.3, 22.0. Obviously, his usage percentage is up, which has resulted in all the stats that have preceded.

Here's my hope. The Spurs are not doing this to pander to Kawhi's ego. They aren't doing this because they are trying to keep Kawhi and his agent happy so he'll sign next year. They are not sacrificing the team for the individual. This is not the result of Riley's "Disease of More."

Popovich is riding his young star early and often to take the load off his 'older than dirt' Big Three. At the same time, with so many early injuries to deal with, his load would have increased regardless. In addition, it's early in a long season and who cares about the record anyway? OKC has to throw a no-hitter the rest of the way to catch the Spurs and I don't think any other team in the West scares Pop.

Furthermore, why not see if Kawhi can finally make the leap? The Spurs are full of high character guys and their chemistry will not take a hit. Maybe Kawhi can become a consistent offensive star, and if we don't give him the chance now, it will hurt us down the road. Also, shut up, Fred. We've only lost five game. What are you complaining about? You wanted to go undefeated?

No, although it'd be nice. My problem is that I love watching the Spurs offense flow. I like the ball to kick eight, nine and ten times. I even like it when they overpass and it results in a turnover. I like the motion, the unselfishness. Every time the offense stops so Kawhi can post up, a little part of my Spurs love dies. Hopefully, sample size and injury/age factors are to blame and this is not a long term plan, or even worse, a result of Kawhi's 'Disease of More.'

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