RealGM 2023 Top 100 Project - #34 (Kawhi Leonard)

[Cavsfansince84]

This is a little surprising to me. Kawhi only has 3 fully healthy prime seasons as a top 10 player in the NBA: 2016, 2019, and 2020. In every other season, he literally could not finish the season healthy.

Yeah, it's the biggest disagreement I have so far with this project. Kawhi isn't top 40 worthy to me, you can sneak him into top 50 if you are high on his peak but it's hard to put him any higher given his mediocre longevity and horrible durability combination.

I agree but also add I think in terms of leadership and intangibles he also lags behind most players who are in the 30-50 range. I honestly don't know anyone could watch his tenure in LA and how he exited SA and not have a similar view. Maybe its not completely his fault but it's part of his career and legacy at this point. Plus all the seasons which ended not only in him missing games but getting shut down or unable to finish postseason runs. It is what it is but I think that stuff should have been part of the discussions(which it might have been but I'm not paying super close attention). I think a lot of people see 'goodness' in terms of metrics and have trouble separating that from how they evaluate players.

[lessthanjake]

This is a little surprising to me. Kawhi only has 3 fully healthy prime seasons as a top 10 player in the NBA: 2016, 2019, and 2020. In every other season, he literally could not finish the season healthy.

Yeah, it's the biggest disagreement I have so far with this project. Kawhi isn't top 40 worthy to me, you can sneak him into top 50 if you are high on his peak but it's hard to put him any higher given his mediocre longevity and horrible durability combination.

I agree but also add I think in terms of leadership and intangibles he also lags behind most players who are in the 30-50 range. I honestly don't know anyone could watch his tenure in LA and how he exited SA and not have a similar view. Maybe its not completely his fault but it's part of his career and legacy at this point. Plus all the seasons which ended not only in him missing games but getting shut down or unable to finish postseason runs. It is what it is but I think that stuff should have been part of the discussions(which it might have been but I'm not paying super close attention). I think a lot of people see 'goodness' in terms of metrics and have trouble separating that from how they evaluate players.

I didn’t contribute much to this particular thread, but I did talk about and vote for Kawhi in earlier threads, and at least from my perspective I wasn’t ignoring those issues at all. If he didn’t have those issues I’d have voted for him much much earlier. His durability imposed a significant penalty on him in my eyes. There just comes a point where I think a guy is a substantially better basketball player than anyone else that is nominated, such that I feel like he deserves the nod over someone who was more durable but really just not in the same tier of player. That’s my thinking at least. I think someone who does a rigorous “CORP” analysis might come to a different conclusion. But honestly, even there I think it’s wrong because I think Kawhi is so much better than these other guys that even just a few healthy years of him is more likely to get you more titles than a ton of years from these other guys.

[Cavsfansince84]

I didn’t contribute much to this particular thread, but I did talk about and vote for Kawhi in earlier threads, and at least from my perspective I wasn’t ignoring those issues at all. If he didn’t have those issues I’d have voted for him much much earlier. His durability imposed a significant penalty on him in my eyes. There just comes a point where I think a guy is a substantially better basketball player than anyone else that is nominated, such that I feel like he deserves the nod over someone who was more durable but really just not in the same tier of player. That’s my thinking at least. I think someone who does a rigorous “CORP” analysis might come to a different conclusion. But honestly, even there I think it’s wrong because I think Kawhi is so much better than these other guys that even just a few healthy years of him is more likely to get you more titles than a ton of years from these other guys.

I mean everyone has their own methodology they use but also taking part in something like this I think is a great opportunity for people to examine that and maybe see where they can improve upon it. So I'd hope that people are at least open to that and did take into account what I said above and if they did and still think he should be voted in at 34 that's fine. I just hope they did take it into account.

[falcolombardi]

If it comes down to kawhi vs frazier i go kawhi

Frazier longevity may be a bit longer, specially adjusting for era expectations. But kawhi best years are a step ahead in my opinion so i go with the best player here