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Reflecting on the 2017 Western Conference Finals, I'm curious: if Kawhi Leonard hadn't suffered that injury in Game 1, could the Spurs have realistically challenged—or even defeated—the Warriors? San Antonio was leading by 23 points when Kawhi exited, and it's worth examining how the series might have unfolded had he remained on the court.

Here are the depth charts for both teams during that series:

San Antonio Spurs (2016–17):

Patty Mills / Dejounte Murray
Danny Green / Manu Ginóbili / Jonathon Simmons
Kawhi Leonard / Kyle Anderson
LaMarcus Aldridge / David Lee
Pau Gasol / Dewayne Dedmon

Golden State Warriors (2016–17):

Stephen Curry / Shaun Livingston
Klay Thompson / Ian Clark / Patrick McCaw
Kevin Durant / Andre Iguodala / Matt Barnes
Draymond Green / David West
Zaza Pachulia / JaVale McGee / Kevon Looney

Do you believe a healthy Kawhi could have altered the outcome of the series? Could the Spurs have pushed the Warriors to a full series—or even secured an upset?

The Spurs weren't going to win that series. The Spurs were very good, but that Warriors team was arguably the greatest ever. One hot shooting game by the Spurs wouldn't change that.

I've come around to the view that the Spurs win, which is rather remarkable given the 2017 & 18 Warriors are likely the best team of all-time. Kawhi was just out of his mind those playoffs.

One_and_Done wrote:I've come around to the view that the Spurs win, which is rather remarkable given the 2017 & 18 Warriors are likely the best team of all-time. Kawhi was just out of his mind those playoffs.

You are overthinking this. Spurs had a ~10 opponent adjusted net rating through the first 2 rounds. Warriors had a ~21 opponent adjusted net rating through the first 2 rounds. Warriors also had significantly more talent and obviously a better regular season net rating

Special_Puppy wrote:

One_and_Done wrote:I've come around to the view that the Spurs win, which is rather remarkable given the 2017 & 18 Warriors are likely the best team of all-time. Kawhi was just out of his mind those playoffs.

You are overthinking this. Spurs had a ~10 opponent adjusted net rating through the first 2 rounds. Warriors had a ~21 opponent adjusted net rating through the first 2 rounds. Warriors also had significantly more talent and obviously a better regular season net rating

The Warriors looked outclassed in game 1 until he got hurt. Would it have kept up? Who knows. At the time the Warriors seemed invincible, so I assumed the Spurs play was unsustainable. However, after watching all the players involved in future seasons and having more time to reflect, I've around to the view that the Spurs probably would have won. Kawhi was that good.

One_and_Done wrote:

Special_Puppy wrote:

One_and_Done wrote:I've come around to the view that the Spurs win, which is rather remarkable given the 2017 & 18 Warriors are likely the best team of all-time. Kawhi was just out of his mind those playoffs.

You are overthinking this. Spurs had a ~10 opponent adjusted net rating through the first 2 rounds. Warriors had a ~21 opponent adjusted net rating through the first 2 rounds. Warriors also had significantly more talent and obviously a better regular season net rating

The Warriors looked outclassed in game 1 until he got hurt. Would it have kept up? Who knows. At the time the Warriors seemed invincible, so I assumed the Spurs play was unsustainable. However, after watching all the players involved in future seasons and having more time to reflect, I've around to the view that the Spurs probably would have won. Kawhi was that good.

Not taking it as likely but the rockets series in 2018 and 2019 are enough for me to think it's silly to treat them winning as an inevitability the Spurs can't turn a 1-0 lead into a victory

Outside wrote:The Spurs weren't going to win that series. The Spurs were very good, but that Warriors team was arguably the greatest ever. One hot shooting game by the Spurs wouldn't change that.

We literally saw them about to lose to a comparable Rockets side the next season before Chris Paul's ankles bailed them.

Spurs definitely could have won.

OhayoKD wrote:

Outside wrote:The Spurs weren't going to win that series. The Spurs were very good, but that Warriors team was arguably the greatest ever. One hot shooting game by the Spurs wouldn't change that.

We literally saw them about to lose to a comparable Rockets side the next season before Chris Paul's ankles bailed them.

Spurs definitely could have won.

2018 Warriors were quite a bit worse than the the 2017 Warriors.

For reference, the Warriors had an implied 88% win probability in this series based on Vegas odds. The Thunder entered their ongoing second round series against Denver with an implied win probability of 85%. When Denver went on to win Game 1, the odds shifted such that the Thunder had an implied win probability of 72%.

I would expect similar line movement in reaction to the Spurs winning Game 1 (which I am confident they would have managed had Kawhi not gotten hurt), leaving it in solidly "it's possible! but still unlikely" territory for me. Which also felt accurate for both Denver's chances after Game 1.

Voted GSW in 6 because I think that would be the most likely outcome.

One thing to keep in mind is that we’d generally expect teams to not be as good in the playoffs as they were in the regular season when their bench and deep bench lineups held up really well in the regular season and their starting guys didn’t actually dominate opponents when they were on the court together. That’s because rotations shorten in the playoffs, so having better bench units than other teams matters a good bit in the regular season but doesn’t matter so much in the playoffs. The playoffs are much more a battle of top-of-the-rotation guys, with the quality below that not mattering a whole lot.

That’s relevant here because the 2017 Spurs were very much a deep team that had bench lineups that did really well but whose top-of-the-rotation lineups didn’t actually dominate. The top-of-the-rotation lineups for the 2017 Warriors did orders of magnitude better than the top-of-the-rotation lineups for the 2017 Spurs. Granted, the Spurs did play a pretty deep rotation in the first two rounds of the playoffs, and the benefit of that could’ve been guys not getting gassed at the ends of games in a long series. That’s worth something. But in a really tough series like this one, the rotations would’ve been shortened, and either way, the Spurs really didn’t have anything nearly as good as the best lineups, and that’s a huge problem in a playoff series since the Warriors would’ve spammed those lineups.

I think our baseline expectation should be that the 2017 Warriors would’ve won, and that it likely wouldn’t have even been all that close. That said, the 2017 Spurs were good enough that if we cede them a Game 1 win (which was looking highly likely), then it’s not impossible for them to win, even against a team that’s as good as the 2017 Warriors.

Spurs had zero chance. So weird that people still hold on that thinking the actually had a chance

Oh hell if Leonard wasn't an injury case he would be a top 10 player all time easy. Maybe time 5 most likely. He was that good all around

I voted Warriors in 5(I think they hold on for that game 1) though maybe it goes 6 if Kawhi goes off in some other game for like 40-45.

San Antonio was huge, and their bigs were skilled.

Aldridge, Lee, Gasol, Dedmon, then Kawhi and Kyle Anderson who had the presence of a PF.

They had a lot of rim pressure against GS in that first half with Kawhi, and most importantly, Kawhi allowed Danny Green and Simmons to chase Curry around, something they could much more easily do, compared to guarding KD.

So Kawhi strengthened their defensive matchups and offensively gave their motion offense an automatic bail out option when possessions bogged down, he could make something out of nothing in the last 7 seconds of any possession.

Manu was still a good defender and average offensive player. The Spurs were just something of a sleeping giant with Kawhi playing 50% better in the playoffs. Being that that they already had the #1 defense to begin with.

But still not as good as GS. And the matchups weren’t too good. Spurs bigs got roasted on screen actions and Kawhi could help a lot, but not prevent it.

Probably a 5 or 6 game GSW series win. It would’ve been scary at times though. Even the 17 finals had the competition level of a 5 or 6 gamer.

I think playing it out over and over results in a lot of 5 and 6 game series and I decided it might be 60/40 in favor of 6 games.

In terms of specifically what I think would’ve happened, I think if you ran that series from the beginning a bunch of times, the average outcome would probably be Warriors in 5. But Kawhi’s injury didn’t happen at the beginning of the series. Given that the Spurs almost certainly win Game 1 if Kawhi didn’t get injured during that game, I think the most likely outcome if we just run that series from the point of Kawhi’s injury is probably Warriors in 6. Spurs were good enough to probably get one more game off of them.