Kawhi Leonard Showing Flashes of Value to Spurs, but Gregg Popovich Needs More

LOS ANGELES — Great performances are nothing new for Kawhi Leonard. He wouldn't have a Bill Russell NBA Finals MVP Trophy on his mantel otherwise. If not for Ray Allen's heroics in Game 6 of the 2013 Finals, Leonard might even have two of them.

But those spectacular showings were more the product of Leonard's opportunism than any deliberate machinations on the part of the San Antonio Spurs. Gregg Popovich admitted that he didn't ring up Leonard even once during the Spurs' historic run to the 2014 title.

Leonard didn't seem ready for a shift from spectacular role player to bona fide focal point to start the 2014-15 season. Through his first four games, Leonard averaged a mere 9.5 points and 3.8 free-throw attempts while hitting 30.8 percent of his field-goal attempts, including just 11.1 percent of his threes.

Granted, Leonard's struggles weren't beyond explanation. He missed most of the preseason and the opening game of this campaign with a case of conjunctivitis. The illness forced him into quarantine, away from his teammates, and left his game rusty and the vision in his right eye blurred.

"The eye's an issue every night," Leonard explained. "That's why I'm playing now. I'm trying to get used to it and not even worry about it anymore. A couple weeks or months, it should pass and I'll get my 100 percent vision back."

None of that seemed to matter on Monday night at Staples Center, when Leonard led the Spurs back from a double-digit deficit to upend the Los Angeles Clippers 89-85. He did what he's always done defensively—hounding Jamal Crawford into a 3-of-13 shooting night, picking the pockets of Blake Griffin and Chris Paul in crunch time, smothering their failed attempts at an equalizing basket in the final seconds of the game.

But it was Leonard's offense that truly opened eyes, including his own.

Playing in front of friends and family near his hometown of Moreno Valley, Leonard tied his regular-season career high of 26 points on 10-of-18 shooting—not as the San Antonio's Ringo to Tim Duncan, Tony Parker and Manu Ginobili, but rather as the team's leading man. 

"We ran more plays for him tonight than I ever have in his career," Popovich said after the game. "That's the plan. We've got to start giving him the ball."

And give him the ball they did. Leonard played with an aggressive streak rarely seen from him before, pushing the ball to create shots for himself and dishing to teammates when his opportunities weren't there. 

According to NBA.com, half of Leonard's shots on the night and six of his makes came when a defender was within three-and-a-half feet of him. That's hardly what might usually be expected of a star turn in a Spurs offense that generates clean looks as a matter of habit.

"We're less of a play-calling team," Tim Duncan explained Monday night. "We're more about moving without the ball and everybody gets to touch the ball.

"But in certain situations where we are struggling and need to find someone to make a shot, you have to call on people. We did just that with Kawhi. We asked him to carry us, and he did that."

To be sure, the Spurs won't need Leonard to carry them every night just yet. The Big Three of Duncan, Parker and Ginobili are still plenty productive and as such afford Popovich the leeway to ease Leonard into a starring role. They poured in 51 points in L.A., just above their combined season average of 45.1 points.

"He was a Finals MVP last year," Paul said of Leonard at his postgame press conference on Monday. "When you are playing on a team like that with all these Hall of Famers, a lot of times you get overlooked."

Indeed, it's tough to find much daylight in a forest canopy crowded by the likes Duncan (two regular-season MVPs, three Finals MVPs, five titles, 14 selections apiece to the All-Star Game, All-NBA teams and All-Defensive teams), Parker (Finals MVP, four championships, six All-Star appearances, four All-NBA selections) and Ginobili (four rings, two All-Star trips, a Sixth Man of the Year Award). For Leonard, though, that merely means he'll have to work that much harder and grow that much more to get the touches—and the attention—he deserves.

Which, it seems, he's already doing and getting.

"He's the future," Popovich added, following with a bit of his typically dry wit. "I don't think Tim and Manu are going to play any more than six or seven more years, so somebody else—do something."

Leonard has all the tools (i.e. the length, the athleticism, the skill, the coachability, the work ethic) to be a member of the NBA's elite, and conveyed a sense of relief and confidence at finally being able to demonstrate as much on the court.

Andrew D. Bernstein/Getty Images

"It's better to really walk it, instead of just hearing [Coach Popovich] talk about it," Leonard said, with surprising candor. "Like I said, it's just going to get me better, to get these repetitions in a game. You can practice it out and it's easier than a game, but you only get better when you do it inside the game.

"I'm just going to need that to keep moving forward and be a better player, rather than when that time comes it just hits me right in the face and I don't really know what to do or how to manage it. If we keep moving forward like this, it will be great."

Particularly for Leonard. He and the Spurs failed to come to terms on a long-term extension prior to the Oct. 31 deadline, for reasons that, as USA Today's Sam Amick explained, have less to do with Leonard's immense ability than with the potential retirement of two-thirds of the Spurs' Big Three (Duncan and Ginobili) after this season:

"

The Spurs have big plans for this summer, among them the idea of replacing Duncan with a free agent such as Marc Gasol if "The Big Fundamental" retires as expected. And with Leonard's salary cap hold proving so prohibitive had he received the extension he so desired, he's confident their vision will be realized.

"

As a result, Leonard will be ticketed for restricted free agency come July, wherein the Spurs will have the opportunity to match any and every offer sheet that should come Kawhi's way. Until then, Leonard figures to be featured more and more as the future of the franchise, with Duncan (38) and Ginobili (37) nearing the end and Parker (32) approaching his own twilight.

Leonard, for his part, sees no reason to leave the Alamo City behind.

"I don't think I'm going anywhere," he told Amick. "I mean they love me here. I like the organization, and if it was up to me, I want to finish out with one team like a lot of great players have done, to stay with one organization their whole career and just be loyal to that. You never know. We'll see what happens next summer, but I'm pretty sure I'll be in a Spurs jersey for my whole life."

Don't get it twisted, though: It's not as though the quiet and reserved Leonard, now in his fourth season out of San Diego State, is suddenly demanding a bigger role and the paychecks that come with it. Rather, he's simply taking what's there, be it a driving lane afforded by the defense or an opportunity doled out by his coach.

"He's never said one thing to me or asked me one thing about, 'Pop, why don't we...?' or 'Pop, why don't you ...?' or, 'Pop, can I...?'" Popovich divulged. "He's just unbelievably coachable and does whatever we ask him to do. He's a coach's dream, very honestly."

For the Spurs, Leonard looks ready to be the one to realize the team's dreams of future success, not as the fourth Beatle but as the lead in the league's longest-running band of basketball brothers.

Follow me on Twitter for all the latest NBA news and views!

Follow @JoshMartinNBA