Coach Pop compares Kawhi Leonard to Larry Bird
Kawhi Leonard is breaking out this season as one of the league's very best players. All his stats are career highs and he might be playing even better defense than last year, when he won a Defensive Player of the Year trophy.
It's a meteoric rise, but how did it happen? ESPN's Michael C. Wright has an in-depth profile on what makes Kawhi tick, and in writing it he spoke to Spurs head coach Gregg Popovich, who wound up comparing Leonard's work ethic to that which was once held by one of the game's all-time greatest players:
Comparing Bird to Kawhi seems...totally rational. That's how good Leonard's been. And he's only 24 years old, which means we still have plenty of time to build up his mythology.
"First of all, he shows up before and after practice. Before shootaround today, he's there 45 minutes to an hour early. He's working on little bank shots, jump shots, rocker step out on the wing from the short wing," Popovich said. "It's like Larry Bird coming and shooting 200 shots before games like he used to do. He's there. "After practice, he's there working on his 3-pointer. He's not shooting at the percentage he's shooting just because it happened. He's putting in the time. He's worked at it. So Chip Engelland and Chad Forcier have done a great job working with his moves, his shooting, that kind of thing. That's the first thing that shows you his work ethic is for real."
