Paul George vs Kawhi Leonard

[spearsy23]

I feel like we've seen this story before from George where he breaks out with a couple extremely hot shooting months and convinces everyone he's an offensive focal point. He's such a streaky shooter that eventually it stops falling... And we're left with a middling scorer on mediocre efficiency with sloppy handles and a limited playmaking game. I'm not at all convinced of George as a star offensive player, and I'm actually not sure we've seen enough to put him definitively over Kawhi offensively. If I can see him maintain his current shooting percentages over a full season I'll be a believer.

If,on the other hand, we see the same George that we saw for the last 4 months of 2014, who scored 21 on 42/35 shooting splits, then I'm taking Kawhi without blinking.

Worth noting that George Hill actually led the Pacers to a better offense as the lead guard than Paul Heorge had done the season prior.

A bit odd to accept what Kawhi is doing at face value and not extend the same courtesy to George.

Is it? George is playing worse basketball right now than he did for the first two months of 2014, and there are some of the same indicators going on right now. He's shooting the exact same % on 2s that he did in 14, and that was ALL of 2014 including his post all star self. He's taking a million 3s and hitting 41% of them, so his current play is only as sustainable as that percentage is. Based on what I've seen, I think it's more than likely he settles back into a 21 PPG player on .54 TS or so.

Why is it more likely he regresses than Kawhi? Because Kawhi has improved every year on a linear trend. George on the other hand is a known streaky shooter who has had better stretches of basketball than this that were not sustainable.

George has also improved every year besides last (for obvious reasons). It's not like Paul George was a finished product in his last healthy season, he is only a year older than Kawhi. In addition, Kawhi is currently shooting 45% from three on the highest volume of his career, but for some reason you're willing to accept that? The idea that George has had hot streaks before, and therefore we know he isn't this good, makes no sense. You also criticize his playmaking and handle but ignore Kawhi being a worse playmaker and having significantly less responsibility in that department.

It's just an odd way to compare guys, basically saying 'I've seen this guy do this before, so I know he can't sustain it. I haven't seen this guy do this before, so I know it's for real.'

[Dr Spaceman]

A bit odd to accept what Kawhi is doing at face value and not extend the same courtesy to George.

Is it? George is playing worse basketball right now than he did for the first two months of 2014, and there are some of the same indicators going on right now. He's shooting the exact same % on 2s that he did in 14, and that was ALL of 2014 including his post all star self. He's taking a million 3s and hitting 41% of them, so his current play is only as sustainable as that percentage is. Based on what I've seen, I think it's more than likely he settles back into a 21 PPG player on .54 TS or so.

Why is it more likely he regresses than Kawhi? Because Kawhi has improved every year on a linear trend. George on the other hand is a known streaky shooter who has had better stretches of basketball than this that were not sustainable.

George has also improved every year besides last (for obvious reasons). It's not like Paul George was a finished product in his last healthy season, he is only a year older than Kawhi. In addition, Kawhi is currently shooting 45% from three on the highest volume of his career, but for some reason you're willing to accept that? The idea that George has had hot streaks before, and therefore we know he isn't this good, makes no sense. You also criticize his playmaking and handle but ignore Kawhi being a worse playmaker and having significantly less responsibility in that department.

It's just an odd way to compare guys, basically saying 'I've seen this guy do this before, so I know he can't sustain it. I haven't seen this guy do this before, so I know it's for real.'

Because people aren't taking George because of his slightly improved playmaking. They're taking him for putting up 25 PPG on .600 TS% and having superstar-like usage. To the extent that people are taking PG over Leonard, it's because they believe his offense is substantially better, and multiple people in this thread have stated that.

Re: your general point, I have never said I know Kawhi's current play is for real. Obviously his 3 point shooting is unsustainable. But 3 pointers also account for 23% of Kawhi's FGA, as opposed to 35% of PG's. So if both guys drop to their career average from 3, it's quite obvious George will see more of a drop off statistically.

But I get the sense you think the way I'm dealing with the probabilities is arbitrary, so let me offer this: in science, when we discover a new phenomenon, the first thing we do (besides replicate) is to look for boundary conditions. We already have one with George; we've seen him have extremely hot scoring stretches before, and we know that didn't hold up for a full season. Thus I think a solid null hypothesis would be "If George has reached a new level of play, he will have to sustain this for several months before I'm convinced he isn't doing the exact thing he did before". By contrast, Kawhi's play this season is currently not limited by anything we know of, because we haven't seen him fail before the way we have with Geogre. Thus our predictions have to be more general, and to be honest it was completely obvious to me (and others) in the middle of last season that Kawhi was going to be this player. If you had asked me before the season what Kawhi was going to do this year, I would have said something very,very close to what he's actually doing.

So to clarify what exactly I'm saying, it's that we can make stronger predictions with George than we can with Kawhi. We can predict George falling off because it's not governed by randomness, it's governed by what he's literally done before. With Kawhi there's no reason to think he's going to fall off anymore than there's reason to believe he'll play better later on than he's playing now. If that seems counterintuitive I kind of agree, but these priors are what the Bayesian approach to statistics, and frankly science, are based on.

[spearsy23]

. By contrast, Kawhi's play this season is currently not limited by anything we know of, because we haven't seen him fail before the way we have with Geogre. Thus our predictions have to be more general, and to be honest it was completely obvious to me (and others) in the middle of last season that Kawhi was going to be this player. If you had asked me before the season what Kawhi was going to do this year, I would have said something very,very close to what he's actually doing.

I'd disagree with this, we've seen similar 10 game stretches from Kawhi previously, he just hasn't ever been able to do it night in and night out. It's like Curry's magnificent start to the season, it isn't necessarily indicative of the all time great season, it's just magnified because it's coming at the beginning so there's no other data to even it out.

That said, I completely expect Kawhi to have a season that is pretty comparable to what he is doing right now minus ~7% from 3. But I also don't see PG previously having a shooting slump as any more indicative that his play will drop off (again excluding - ~7% from 3) than the fact that Kawhi has runs of games where his game score will be in the single digits.

[RSCD3_]

According to the GB poll on second best player, it seems that more people think he is better than lebron james so far?

If we stopeed the season now would you agree with that, I expect PG's numbers to go down but does anyone agree with that

I feel it's far fetched

[Texas Chuck]

I'm with spearsy in that I'd not be as quick to say, "this is Kawhi, this isn't George."

Of course Kawhi should be expected to have this natural growth curve because he has remained in the same system with the same core lineup and just had his offensive role slowly grow as he develops and the big 3 age and have to take a step back. This year's addition of LMA is the first major adjustment he's really had to deal with and because this is Pop we know that LMA is actually the guy having to make a major adjustment and Kawhi is just continuing on.

OTOH Paul George has started playing SG on a Granger-led team. Then Granger goes down and George is forced into more of a high-volume scoring role in a new position than was really warranted at that time. He goes from playing with Hibbert/West/Lance to Ian/Monta/Miles and now he's on to his 3rd primary position. It's a pretty significant change. And his teams have simply asked more of him offensively during all of this.

I love Kawhi, but am I convinced he would be this efficient if he had been asked to be a primary option as early as PG? Nor am I convinced that Paul George in a system designed to get him the shots he was most comfortable with with no pressure to carry the offense(prior to this year) couldn't be pretty efficient himself.

I think some of the consistency advantage Dr S. is attributing to Kawhi is based on the circumstances in which their careers have played out to this point. Yes each guy has some things they do better than the other, but I don't think there is much question that Kawhi has had almost the ideal circumstances for bringing a guy along and not giving him too much responsibility offensively too soon.

[Ballerhogger]

Give me Kawhi still George is having a nice start but he hasn't played like kawhi has in the playoffs.

[daschysta]

? PG put up 22.6-7.4-3.8 and 2.2 steals on .578 TS last run and 19.5-7-5 the yeat before his last 2 runs. KWs best run was 20-7-3 on .577 TS.

[510TWSS]

That game George had yesterday he was on fire from everywhere. I love both players it is very hard to choose and be wrong.

[Quotatious]

? PG put up 22.6-7.4-3.8 and 2.2 steals on .578 TS last run and 19.5-7-5 the yeat before his last 2 runs. KWs best run was 20-7-3 on .577 TS.

It's hard to call Kawhi's 20-7-3 on 57.7% TS a "run", because it was only one round. George, on the other hand, played 19 games, which is like a full playoff run - some players won championships playing less games than that. Especially PG's series against LeBron in '14 was very impressive.

[Prez]

Give me Kawhi still George is having a nice start but he hasn't played like kawhi has in the playoffs.

Kawhi in what could be considered his first playoff run as "the guy" last season completely collapsed in the biggest games of a one-series exit. Dude put up 14 ppg on 41% TS over the last 3 games of that series, 12.5 ppg on 40% TS in the last 2 games and they drop both to lose the series. And he wasn't even great defensively to compensate, he was at best their third best defender after Duncan and Green, and I remember it was a lot of his lack of focus and consistent energy later in that series that let to a lot of open 3s for the Clippers.

I'm not sure why no one is willing to talk about it either, so many people had him as a top 10 player even last year (some even top 5) but there was barely any noise about him totally disappearing when his team needed him most in that series. I really don't think Kawhi's playoff performances are the difference maker in this discussion.

[bballexpert]

Give me Kawhi still George is having a nice start but he hasn't played like kawhi has in the playoffs.

Kawhi in what could be considered his first playoff run as "the guy" last season completely collapsed in the biggest games of a one-series exit. Dude put up 14 ppg on 41% TS over the last 3 games of that series, 12.5 ppg on 40% TS in the last 2 games and they drop both to lose the series. And he wasn't even great defensively to compensate, he was at best their third best defender after Duncan and Green, and I remember it was a lot of his lack of focus and consistent energy later in that series that let to a lot of open 3s for the Clippers.

I'm not sure why no one is willing to talk about it either, so many people had him as a top 10 player even last year (some even top 5) but there was barely any noise about him totally disappearing when his team needed him most in that series. I really don't think Kawhi's playoff performances are the difference maker in this discussion.

Pretty much this Leonard was being out performed by 39 year old Duncan in his first time trying to be the first option. Leonard is better now and only improving but when ps comes around we will see what he is made of think he will do great. As for pg i do not know him as well only seen few series from the man but his cast i do not think is in the same league.

[Jurassic_Park]

I feel like we've seen this story before from George where he breaks out with a couple extremely hot shooting months and convinces everyone he's an offensive focal point. He's such a streaky shooter that eventually it stops falling... And we're left with a middling scorer on mediocre efficiency with sloppy handles and a limited playmaking game. I'm not at all convinced of George as a star offensive player, and I'm actually not sure we've seen enough to put him definitively over Kawhi offensively. If I can see him maintain his current shooting percentages over a full season I'll be a believer.

If,on the other hand, we see the same George that we saw for the last 4 months of 2014, who scored 21 on 42/35 shooting splits, then I'm taking Kawhi without blinking.

Worth noting that George Hill actually led the Pacers to a better offense as the lead guard than Paul Heorge had done the season prior.

A bit odd to accept what Kawhi is doing at face value and not extend the same courtesy to George.

Is it? George is playing worse basketball right now than he did for the first two months of 2014, and there are some of the same indicators going on right now. He's shooting the exact same % on 2s that he did in 14, and that was ALL of 2014 including his post all star self. He's taking a million 3s and hitting 41% of them, so his current play is only as sustainable as that percentage is. Based on what I've seen, I think it's more than likely he settles back into a 21 PPG player on .54 TS or so.

Why is it more likely he regresses than Kawhi? Because Kawhi has improved every year on a linear trend. George on the other hand is a known streaky shooter who has had better stretches of basketball than this that were not sustainable.

I'd love for them to trade places... put kawhi on indiana with that team, and PG with the spurs... kawahi efficiency would go down the drain along with the winning that the spurs are currently doing and that would impact the discussion in a big way. I guess these are things that statistics can't measure.

both are great players, but just have a hard time believing kawhi would be as good if the tables were turned.

kind of similar to the draymond green situation....great player..fantastic for golden state and that team....put him on another team where he is the main focus and he would be nowhere as good.

[sophie23]

Statistically they are more or less the same. Maybe Kawhi more shooting %, less turnovers, more blocks, but less assists
For me it depends, who they are, what they are representing, where they are balling. Kawhi would be well suited in a team with a solid foundations,. Paul George is a player you could build your team around him - kind of a leader you want in your team.