Don't Look Now, but Here Come Kawhi Leonard and the San Antonio Spurs
Treading water has never been a San Antonio Spurs staple, but that’s exactly what they were forced to do in Kawhi Leonard’s absence.
With Leonard sidelined from Dec. 16 to Jan. 14 due to a torn ligament in his right hand, the Spurs posted a record of 7-8. Overall, San Antonio is 8-9 with Leonard out of the lineup this season.
But since Leonard’s return Friday night against the Portland Trail Blazers, the Spurs have displayed signs of rapid rejuvenation. You know, the kind that strike fear into even the most trendy Western Conference favorites.
Not only have the Spurs won three straight games for the first time since a November stretch that included victories over the Sacramento Kings, Boston Celtics and Philadelphia 76ers, but they've also captured seven wins over their last 10 games.
If it feels like a resurgence was inevitable, well, that’s because it was. San Antonio is an entirely different animal with Leonard on the floor, a revelation that came to light during his monstrous 2013-14 campaign.
According to NBA.com (h/t NBA.com's John Schuhmann), the Spurs' defensive rating is 9.2 points better with Leonard on the floor. It's so good, in fact, that the mark of 93.9 would rank as the league's best by almost three points, per NBA.com.
And in the 24 games Leonard's appeared in, San Antonio's offensive rating has jumped to 107.4—a full three points better than the team's overall mark of 104.4.
"Leonard is San Antonio's best individual defender, capable of locking up just about every high-volume scorer in the league for long stretches," NBA.com's David Aldridge wrote. "Without his length and vice-like hands on the perimeter contesting shots and getting deflections, teams had a lot more success driving the paint, an original sin in Popovichian Lore."
He's not kidding.
A year removed from ranking No. 7 overall in opponents' field-goal percentage at the rim (50.7), the Spurs have sunk all the way to 18th (52.6 percent), according to SportVU player-tracking data.
Here's the terrifying aspect of the downswing and current rebound: The Spurs, for all of their perceived flaws, still rank sixth in defensive efficiency and are surrendering fractional points less per 100 possessions than they did en route to capturing a title last season, per NBA.com.
Compared to their lofty standards, sure, the results could be sharper.
"Hopefully we can batten down and kind of figure out how we want to play," Tim Duncan said, according to Aldridge. "I think our consistency isn't there, and that's the biggest problem right now. We get healthy, and we got our rotation down the right way, and we understand what we want to do—I think that will come back, and I think that will turn into wins."
If improvement's going to take place, continuity will be key.
Last season, the Spurs had nine qualified players average better than 15 minutes per game. This season, that total has been stretched to 12 players.
To be sure, injuries prevented San Antonio from establishing abundant chemistry on a nightly basis last year, too. The five-man unit of Duncan, Leonard, Danny Green, Tony Parker and Tiago Splitter that topped the Spurs with 262 minutes played appeared in just 30 regular-season games, per NBA.com.
At the midway point of the 2014-15 season, though, that collective has appeared in three games for a total of 30 minutes. Yes, three.
Not surprisingly, the Spurs have been downright dominant during that small sample. With its preferred starting five on the floor, San Antonio generates assists on nearly 80 percent of its baskets and a net rating of plus-15.2 points per 100 possessions, according to NBA.com.
Per Schuhmann, the Spurs are also 14-4 with Leonard, Duncan and Parker all healthy this season, including a mark of 6-2 against teams with records over .500. Extrapolate that winning percentage out, and the Spurs have been playing at a .777 pace with their superstar triumvirate active.
Another component worth monitoring is the clip at which San Antonio runs the floor with Leonard and all of the team's big guns back healthy. For all of the talk that they play a boring (read: technically brilliant) brand of half-court basketball, San Antonio can thrive in transition.
Ranked 21st in pace (95.6 possessions per 48 minutes) overall, the Spurs have played at what would equate to the league's fastest clip (101.2) with—you guessed it—their primary five-man unit, according to NBA.com.
So where do the Spurs go from here? Well, you may be better off craning your neck skyward as a precautionary measure.
Catching the Golden State Warriors, Portland Trail Blazers or Memphis Grizzlies would be wishful thinking, but with a mere three games separating the Spurs from Houston and the No. 4 seed, it's not unreasonable to consider San Antonio a contender for home-court advantage in the first round of the playoffs.
After the Spurs resembled fringe postseason entrants prior to the New Year, the fact that they're starting to solidify a postseason spot with fresh legs and an eye toward rumbling up the standings is a scary proposition for the conference's elite.
As the evidence illuminates, San Antonio's ceiling is frighteningly high should all the pieces fall into place throughout the season's second half. And with a healthy Leonard in tow, title fantasies have a chance of being realized despite the bouts of doubt that had previously enveloped the defending champions.
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