The Case for Kawhi Leonard as 2015 NBA Defensive Player of the Year
When unstoppable forces meet immovable objects, an air of unpredictability tends to shroud final outcomes. But when unstoppable offensive forces meet Kawhi Leonard, it's safe to assume the 2014 NBA Finals MVP will impose his defensive will with authority, leaving helpless opponents in his wake.
Ever since returning from a month-long absence due to a torn ligament in his right hand, Leonard has steadily rounded back into elite form, with extravagant post-All-Star-break performances pushing him into the NBA's Defensive Player of the Year conversation.
Anchoring a San Antonio Spurs defense that recently jumped the Milwaukee Bucks for No. 2 overall on the efficiency charts, Leonard has parlayed his incredible combination of length (7'3'' wingspan), hand size (9.75 inches long, per the San Antonio Express-News) and perimeter discipline into a bid for the league's highest individual honors on defense.
While that trend has been evident over the past month-and-a-half, Leonard's single-handed shutdown of the Golden State Warriors' perimeter attack Sunday evening served as a reminder that he will be taking no prisoners as he snatches orange spheres from the grasp of the NBA's most vaunted scorers.
In San Antonio's 107-92 shellacking of the Warriors, Leonard finished with a game-high 26 points (11-of-17 shooting), five rebounds and a career-high seven steals.
According to Pounding The Rock's Brett Jones, "The Spurs scored off of five of Leonard's seven steals, an average of 2.87 points per possession, providing a huge shot in the arm, which helped the offense keep humming all night long."
The following swipe of Stephen Curry could have had Leonard arrested for grand larceny:
"Kawhi was magnificent at both ends of the court," Spurs head coach Gregg Popovich said, according to the Associated Press (via ESPN.com). "He is really playing confidently, but he hasn't forgotten to predicate his game on defense and on the boards. It kind of fuels him offensively."
That show-stopping stint was more than an isolated glimpse at greatness—it was emblematic of the dominant, stoic approach that's come to define his game over the past two seasons.
Through 59 appearances, Leonard has represented an impervious wall of awesomeness, posting an individual defensive rating of 96.8. According to Basketball-Reference.com, Warriors center Andrew Bogut is the only player with a superior mark. As an aside, Bogut assuredly belongs in the conversation, but his efforts have been overshadowed by a healthier, more versatile Green.
When Leonard's been manning the controls, San Antonio's allowed a whopping 5.6 points fewer per 100 possessions compared to his time on the bench.
Leonard also leads the league in steals at 2.31 per game, putting him on track to join Chris Paul and Ricky Rubio as the only other player this decade to top an average of 2.3.
However, his impact can't be boiled down to a simple counting stat.
What makes Leonard the NBA's Defensive Player of the Year is his ability to shut down opponents across the board with no mercy.
"Perfect defense is preventing a shot from materializing in the first place, erasing stats before they exist," Michael Pina wrote for Sports On Earth. "Nobody does this better than Leonard. He's the most confident individual defender in the league, regularly hounding his man 30 feet from the basket with no fear of a blow-by."
As the following data from NBASavant.com indicates, Leonard's ability to suffocate shooters has been next-level ridiculous:
| 0-1 Feet | 33% |
| 1-2 Feet | 42% |
| 2-3 Feet | 45% |
| 3-4 Feet | 46% |
| 4-5 Feet | 38% |
| 5-6 Feet | 42% |
| 6+ Feet | 48% |
Even when Leonard's not within arm's reach, opponents still can't crack a conversion rate of 50 percent—not that you can blame them. One death stare from Leonard in a ball-handler's direction, and he is likely to be shaken to the core.
According to SportVU player-tracking data, Leonard has also used physical qualities that created players in NBA 2K dream of to hound prospective scorers inside the arc:
| Overall | 43.6 | 45.0 | -1.4% |
| Less than 6 feet | 55.0 | 59.9 | -4.9% |
| Less than 10 feet | 50.7 | 54.5 | -3.8% |
| Greater than 15 feet | 38.2 | 36.6 | 1.6% |
In other words, Leonard's length is somehow more effective below the free-throw line than it is from beyond it.
To cap things off, Leonard has held both small forwards and power forwards to player-efficiency ratings below 13 (the league average is 15), according to 82games.com.
But is that multipositional functionality enough to push Leonard past Defensive Player of the Year front-runner Draymond Green?
Green's willingness to guard all five positions has been at the crux of his candidacy all season long, and as Bleacher Report's Josh Martin noted, that versatility has fueled Golden State's stylistic renaissance.
"Green's ability to do so has afforded his teammates the freedom to switch assignments with relative ease and, in turn, made Golden State's defense not only the NBA's best, but perhaps a new model to be emulated going forward," Martin wrote.
| Draymond Green | 96.7 | +6.4 | 1.59 | 1.3 | 38.7 |
| Kawhi Leonard | 96.2 | +5.6 | 2.31 | 0.8 | 43.6 |
For all of Green's dominance, he didn't hesitate to anoint Leonard the league's premier defender following Sunday night's contest, according to Project Spurs' Jeff Garcia:
Green's refreshing honesty isn't going to shift voter perception, but his forward admission is reflective of how important Leonard has been to the Spurs' resurgence.
Winners of seven straight with the Southwest Division title still up for grabs, the Spurs wouldn't have been able to throttle back into elite sectors sans Leonard. Since his return to the lineup Jan. 16, San Antonio's defense has been fractional points better than Golden State's while posting a record of 27-10 in that span.
A smaller sample size can be cited as a legitimate excuse to go with Green over Leonard, but the numbers and testimonials indicate that it shouldn't be a decisive factor after watching Leonard go ballistic down the stretch.
Heck, the fact that he's even in the conversation despite having played 15 fewer games is a remarkable achievement in its own right.
And even if Leonard finishes as the runner-up, you can bank on him capturing first-team All-Defensive honors as a precursor to extended dominance throughout the postseason.
All statistics are current as of April 6 and courtesy of Basketball-Reference.com and NBA.com, unless noted otherwise.
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