Muscling his way into the MVP conversation with his elite two-way play, Spurs All-Star Kawhi Leonard has quickly emerged as one of the best players in the league. Always extremely skilled on the defensive end, Leonard's hard work has made him a go-to player on offense for San Antonio as well. And because of his work ethic and improvement on offense every season, Leonard is leading the Spurs in the post-Tim Duncan era. But Leonard wasn't always such a dynamic scorer.
When he was acquired by the Spurs in a draft day trade involving George Hill, San Antonio mainly selected Leonard for the intangibles he could bring on defense. Yet with the 2011 NBA Lockout going into effect shortly after the draft, Leonard got instructions and shooting drills to do by himself as teams were not allowed to work with players then. One aspect that the Spurs wanted Leonard to work on was his shooting form, which they believed could be similar to Lakers legend Kobe Bryant. Leonard took this lesson and ran with it, working on his shot during the lockout and since then, he's been fine-tuning his form with the Spurs coaching staff to be like Bryant's.
From Jonathan Abrams of B/R Mag:
Chip Engelland (assistant coach, Spurs): “Whether a billion hours, a million hours or a thousand hours, everyone has worked on their shot, and every shot’s personal, and not everybody’s willing to change. I didn't have time to spend and get to know him and get personal with his shot.
“I used Richard [Jefferson] as a model and also used Kobe Bryant, because Kobe Bryant has really good shooting form. I didn’t know if Kawhi was a Laker fan or not or a Kobe fan, but you had to respect his work and his shooting. So, we used pictures and video of them. I showed him his pictures of where his was, similar to where Richard was. Kawhi’s smart, and he goes, ‘Let's go to work, let's do it.’”
Leonard has yet to hit as many clutch shots as Bryant, but his accurate shooting is definitely key to his success on offense. He is shooting 48.3 percent and 37.4 percent from three this season. For his career, Leonard is a 49.5 percent shooter from the file and 38.6 percent three-point shooter, which is actually better than Bryant's career averages of 44.7 percent and 32.9 percent from the field and long distance, respectively. Bryant has a higher scoring average of 25.0 points compared to Leonard's average of 16.3 points though.
But Leonard is definitely heading in the right direction offensively and his improvement on offense has been crucial to San Antonio's success the last couple of seasons. And perhaps as his career progresses, Leonard will be viewed as an elite offensive player just like the player he modeled his shot after, Kobe Bryant.
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