Gregg Popovich: Kawhi Leonard Has Michael Jordan Potential As Two-Way Player

Gregg Popovich declared that Kawhi Leonard has “arrived” after Leonard’s 32-point performance against the Oklahoma City Thunder last week. The Spurs head coach spoke with Jeff McDonald of the San Antonio Express-News on Wednesday about Leonard’s progression and potential:

Q. Leonard has already been a monster at both ends so far this season. What is the next step in his evolution?

Popovich: “At this point, he’s just trying to figure out what to do when people come after him. He’s getting double-teamed now. That’s a whole different basketball game. So he’s watching Barkley tape and Jordan tape and seeing what those guys did. Those guys were great baiters. They’d get in a situation where they knew where they wanted to go with the pass. Right now, he’s learning when do I try to score, when am I in a crowd, when am I not in crowd, when do I let it go? All those decisions. That’s the part of the game he’s working on.

“He already plays at both ends, which is pretty spectacular. There aren’t too many guys in the league who can excel at both ends. They’re good players, but they’re mostly offensive. They don’t do what he does.”

Q. Do you worry about the energy he has to expend to do that at both ends of the court?

Popovich: “It’s about how good a player do you want to be? He has the ability to do what a Michael Jordan did at both ends. I don’t mean he’s Michael Jordan, but Michael played both ends of the floor. Kobe does the same thing, when he so desires. You think about the best players in the league, they’re not two-way players. He wants to do that, and he stays after it every day. Chip Engelland and Chad Forcier do a great job developing him. He works hard at it. We’re working him in the pick and roll now, so I can give him the ball like I do Manu.”

Leonard, just 24 years old and in his fifth season, has been a Finals MVP and a Defensive Player of the Year. His offensive game continues to develop but he still makes high impact plays. What Popovich is alluding to, as he mentioned in reference to Michael Jordan, is Leonard’s comfortability and awareness in situations where he can more easily and regularly dominate.

Leonard isn’t the scorer that Michael Jordan was. His game isn’t as loud. But his ceiling is scarily unknown, and if he’s watching tapes of Jordan and Charles Barkley, then he’s looking to pick things up from two of the loudest most aggressive forces the game has ever seen.