Wait, did Gregg Popovich just compare Kawhi Leonard to Michael Jordan?
Kawhi Leonard is an incredible all-around basketball player, someone who can take over games on both sides of the ball at the exact same time. (Just think about that for a minute.)
Yesterday, before the San Antonio Spurs were defeated by the Washington Wizards, Gregg Popovich gave a quick Q&A with the San Antonio Express-News about his young superstar's growth, and how he's already so amazing:
Popovich said something similar during the first round of last year's postseason, regarding Leonard watching film of Barkley to handle different defensive coverages. It's so scary that teams are already treating him like he's an all-time great.
Someday he will be.
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.
