Kawhi Leonard still an elite perimeter defender?

[DaddyCool19]

He was pretty average last year, and has definitely regressed to be just an above average defensive player. But that is mostly by choice, as we can see him turn it on when he wants to. It's hard to be elite on both sides of the ball, and considering how elite his team was defensively around him, he didnt need to focus on it as much.


But yeah, all stats show he has severely regressed. I don't care what some cherry picked stat going up against Giannis only like it's the end all be all measurement here.

How about my full regular season stats? Want to disregard my whole premise while you're at it? By all accounts holding people to 31% shooting and .55 PPP in isolation is ELITE. It's literally 96th percentile. That was for a guy who's supposedly "just an above average defender now". Iso defense is easily the most valuable defensive aspect considering superstars take over and 1 on 1 becomes a bigger deal as the season goes on, especially in the playoffs.

But who was he guarding? Why bother Kawhi with defending your opponents best wing or small ball four, if you have Green and Siakam on your team?

[freethedevil]

He was pretty average last year, and has definitely regressed to be just an above average defensive player. But that is mostly by choice, as we can see him turn it on when he wants to. It's hard to be elite on both sides of the ball, and considering how elite his team was defensively around him, he didnt need to focus on it as much.


But yeah, all stats show he has severely regressed. I don't care what some cherry picked stat going up against Giannis only like it's the end all be all measurement here.

How about my full regular season stats? Want to disregard my whole premise while you're at it? By all accounts holding people to 31% shooting and .55 PPP in isolation is ELITE. It's literally 96th percentile. That was for a guy who's supposedly "just an above average defender now".

Imagine using how he guards up against players rather than, well, you know...

How he affects his team's defence?

Iso defense is easily the most valuable defensive aspect considering superstars take over and 1 on 1 .

If that was truly the case then kawhi would have been one of the most imapctful defenders of the playoffs. But he wasn't.

Methinks you don't understand how defense works.

[OkcSinceSGA]

He was pretty average last year, and has definitely regressed to be just an above average defensive player. But that is mostly by choice, as we can see him turn it on when he wants to. It's hard to be elite on both sides of the ball, and considering how elite his team was defensively around him, he didnt need to focus on it as much.


But yeah, all stats show he has severely regressed. I don't care what some cherry picked stat going up against Giannis only like it's the end all be all measurement here.

How about my full regular season stats? Want to disregard my whole premise while you're at it? By all accounts holding people to 31% shooting and .55 PPP in isolation is ELITE. It's literally 96th percentile. That was for a guy who's supposedly "just an above average defender now".

Imagine using how he guards up against players rather than, well, you know...

How he affects his team's defence?

Iso defense is easily the most valuable defensive aspect considering superstars take over and 1 on 1 .

If that was truly the case then kawhi would have been one of the most imapctful defenders of the playoffs. But he wasn't.

Methinks you don't understand how defense works.

I should specify among wings/guards. Rim defense is probably still king, but in terms of what a wing/guard does... 1 on 1 D is far more important in the playoffs than "team defense". We are talking about an individual's defensive prowess here. Team defense is code for I don't want to hold one guy accountable or assess one player, so we need some arbitrary, broad term to nitpick what they may not be good at.

[Saberestar]

I do not know how this is even a question...the answer to me is absolutely yes.

He did not play at full speed during the regular season (but he played pretty well yet) because past injuries, but in games on the line or in the playoffs he showed that he is a terrific defender.

[og15]

https://www.12up.com/posts/kawhi-leonard-has-defended-giannis-better-than-any-other-player-in-the-nba-01dbn67g4nxp

Read on Twitter

Read on Twitter

Blake Griffin 2nd? Im taking this list with a grain of salt.

It's not simply an individual stat, that's for sure. Giannis averaged 39.2 pts/100 during the season. Blake might matchup well with him, or the Pistons might have sent extra defenders to make him pass more, maybe Drummond at the rim dissuaded him, or bothered his shots more, etc. That can account for the number, doesn't actually mean that Blake individually defended him the "2nd best" , the Pistons might have been sending an extra defender and giving up more pts/possession as a team despite reducing Gianiss' pts/possession when Blake guarded him.

The significance I can see from the Kawhi one is that it is such an extreme outlier, but the Raptors were a great defense and multiple defenders were coming, but it is still a massive outlier that it certainly suggests either a reluctance to attack Kahwi, or struggle in doing so.

[LastNameEver]

I never seen a player impose himself physically on Giannis like Kawhi did. He cut him off like he was a small guard

[Illmatic12]

He is not going to be charged with defending the primary guy all game any more since he is a primary scorer now, but when you need him to lock in he is still one of the best. Nobody, however, defends one on one all game and scores now. Not even Jordan did that.

Payton on the Sonics may have been the closest.

Sent from my SM-N970W using Tapatalk

This is why he wanted to play with Paul george more than anyone else. Kawhi can switch off on D so he doesn’t have to take the toughest matchup every night , that will help save his bad wheels as he ages.

As you mentioned , Jordan in the latter half of career was similar. Bulls had Scottie, Ron Harper, even Rodman able to spell MJ defensively over the course of the long season.

[freethedevil]

How about my full regular season stats? Want to disregard my whole premise while you're at it? By all accounts holding people to 31% shooting and .55 PPP in isolation is ELITE. It's literally 96th percentile. That was for a guy who's supposedly "just an above average defender now".

Imagine using how he guards up against players rather than, well, you know...

How he affects his team's defence?

Iso defense is easily the most valuable defensive aspect considering superstars take over and 1 on 1 .

If that was truly the case then kawhi would have been one of the most imapctful defenders of the playoffs. But he wasn't.

Methinks you don't understand how defense works.

I should specify among wings/guards. Rim defense is probably still king, but in terms of what a wing/guard does... 1 on 1 D is far more important in the playoffs than "team defense"

Citation needed. Actually forget the citation, because kawhi only managed strong 1 v1 d in half of the series he played in. His man defense was went off a cliff vs the warriors and was unremarkable vs orlando. That aside, I'm going to need some proof that 1 v1 d is more important than being able to rotate properly for a wing/guard. Kobe bryant pst 2004 was one of the most blwon by defenders in the league despite being left on weak matchups and yet his help+rotations had him managing seasons where the lakers were better defenseivly with him.

If kawhi's man defense is that valuable then we should see it in he affects his team defensively, we don't so I see little reaso to ignore how he impacts his yea, because you think man defense is uber important.

[zimpy27]

He is an elite 1-on-1 defender and a great team defender (when he tries). On the whole, I wouldn't call him an elite perimeter defender but a great perimeter defender in the playoffs and a good perimeter defender in the regular season.

[Chris76]

He is an elite 1-on-1 defender and a great team defender (when he tries). On the whole, I wouldn't call him an elite perimeter defender but a great perimeter defender in the playoffs and a good perimeter defender in the regular season.

Kawhi disrupted the Sixers the whole game, especially in crunch time. He switched on to Butler and shut him down on the perimeter. Sixers settled for bad contested shots.

[zimpy27]

He is an elite 1-on-1 defender and a great team defender (when he tries). On the whole, I wouldn't call him an elite perimeter defender but a great perimeter defender in the playoffs and a good perimeter defender in the regular season.

Kawhi disrupted the Sixers the whole game, especially in crunch time. He switched on to Butler and shut him down on the perimeter. Sixers settled for bad contested shots.

Yeah, he's elite one on one. The sixers failing was that every player outside of Butler and Embiid were terrible offensively when pressure was applied. They are an easy target and easier now Butler has left. Simmons, Harris and JRich need to all step up and be quality offensive options with pressure.

[HBK_Kliq_33]

He's a 1996-1998 Jordan level defender. Great team defense, also put him on a star in a big playoff game and he will lock his ass up. Best man to man defender in the league when locked in and still one of the best overall defenders in the league.

[Pennebaker]

I've seen a lot of people saying he's fallen off a cliff, but when it comes to 1 on 1 defense, few score higher. Per Synergy, Kawhi holds players to 31% shooting on .55 Points per possession in 1 on 1 situations (isolation plays), which is 96th percentile. Not to say his team defense or overall impact on that end hasn't decreased, but he's still not a guy you want to try 1 on 1. I've noticed in general when guys become full fledged superstars and take on a huge offensive load, their defense takes a hit. So I'm not surprised that his defense was better in SA when he was basically in an Iggy role vs being a #1 option scoring 25+ ppg.

Does he still deserve respect as a great defender despite the reduced DRPM?

He is still considered an elite perimeter defender, but naturally the more his offensive workload increases the less energy he will have on the other end.

His DRPM is quite shocking.

[OzThunder]

Why do we never get to discuss the Clippers though.

[Don Ford]

I've seen a lot of people saying he's fallen off a cliff, but when it comes to 1 on 1 defense, few score higher. Per Synergy, Kawhi holds players to 31% shooting on .55 Points per possession in 1 on 1 situations (isolation plays), which is 96th percentile. Not to say his team defense or overall impact on that end hasn't decreased, but he's still not a guy you want to try 1 on 1. I've noticed in general when guys become full fledged superstars and take on a huge offensive load, their defense takes a hit. So I'm not surprised that his defense was better in SA when he was basically in an Iggy role vs being a #1 option scoring 25+ ppg.

Does he still deserve respect as a great defender despite the reduced DRPM?

Absolutely. And he's also elite post defender since he could guard AD and "physically abuse him"

[Badonkadonk]

Raps fan here. Regular season metrics are irrelevant, he pretty much went half-speed and missed a quarter of the season.

As far as the playoffs go, he did go hard and looked like his old self. He also paid a price and was visibly limping at times in each series. Still, I would say he remained above average throughout and peaked vs. Giannis, where he was otherwordly. As far as the playoffs go, Gasol (I see how he won DPOY before), FVV and Lowry all played D at an extremely high level and Kawhi wasn't "featured" so to speak, though I'm sure that would have been different if KD was healthy.

[dhsilv2]

He is still a top tier man defender when he's not hiding from anyone who can score to rest on defense. Doesn't make him an elite perimeter defender. Why discuss one on one defense? It's not as important as team defense.

[XTC]

Will coast during the regular season on defense... which is fine, because he turns into a complete beast in the playoffs on that end.

I will say one thing though. His man defense isn’t as good as it was during his Spurs days, but he’s still an amazing team defender, and help defender.

[Yallbecrazy]

What I noticed of Kawhi is on a switch or in transition he's only an above average defender, but if you get him to focus on someone and defend that guy the whole time (has to be a top guy where he wants to zone in) there is no one that has ever been better in the history of the game.

This is an eye test thing I noticed from being a Raps fan last year, something advanced stats don't pick up since the parameters would not be definable.

Oh, he's also an elite rebounder which goes unnoticed. His rebound stats aren't elite because he doesn't go for uncontested rebounds at all, but against the Sixers he came up with so many important rebounds where it looked as though Embiid, Simmons, or Harris were favoured for it.

[azwfan]

He did not appear to be elite defensively in the Finals... but that could have more to do with possibly being hobbled and possibly not having to deal with KD. I'm sure he would have stepped up defensively had the Raptors needed more from him.