San Antonio Spurs: Kawhi Leonard’s Expansion On Offense

In the middle of all the conversation of the San Antonio Spurs’ Big Three era coming to an end is how they will react once it actually is over.

For years, the question remained who would take over once Tim Duncan, Tony Parker and Manu Ginobili would call it a day. The answer now is Kawhi Leonard.

Coach Gregg Popovich has said before that Leonard is the future of this team, which is high praise for a coach who doesn’t even like to talk to the media to begin with. Leonard’s sophomore year showed that he has potential to lead this Spurs team and can start taking his spot as a leader as early as this season.

With every regular season and postseason since his entrance to the NBA, Leonard has upped his scoring and rebounding and looks poised to keep that trend going. Though the numbers only slightly increase when factoring in minutes, this is with sharing the ball with the big three and the slow transition that younger players make in San Antonio.

2012 regular season: 7.9 points, 5.1 rebounds per 24 minutes
2012 playoffs: 8.6 points, 5.9 rebounds per 27.1 minutes
2013 regular season: 11.9 points, six rebounds per 31.2 minutes
2013 playoffs: 13.5 points, nine rebounds per 36.9 minutes
2013 NBA Finals: 14.6 points, 11.1 rebounds per 36.5 minutes

If Kawhi Leonard is really the future of the Spurs, he needs to become more of an offensive weapon. Photo Credit: Mark Runyon, Basketball Schedule

Expect Leonard to be more involved in the offense than we’ve seen before. Popovich has said during training camp that he will run more plays for Leonard this year, but it remains to be seen as to how. Leonard has already proven that he’s a reliable spot-up shooter at 40.6 percent and scorer in transition 65 percent, including this masterpiece:

The next biggest part of the offense that could open up a whole new part of his game is handling the ball as the playmaker. Ginobili’s age is catching up to him and Danny Green hasn’t shown that he’s capable of handling the ball. As great of a shooter as he is, Green still fits the team best in spot-up situations.

Another area in the offense that Leonard can thrive from is getting opportunities to post up and score. Though a limited sample size, Leonard shot 69 percent and averaged 1.18 points per possession last season in that scenario and goes for turnaround post jumpers when he can, as shown in this article by Pounding the Rock. When the Spurs run small ball, Leonard will more than likely handle the power forward position, increasing his opportunities in the paint.

As the starting small forward in San Antonio, Leonard has plenty of All-Stars around him to learn from as well. The big three have all at one point put up MVP-like numbers for the team in the playoffs and Coach Pop is one of the best in the league.

The window of this era will most likely close in two years when the contracts of the big three expire. If Leonard can take on being the No. 1 guy for the Spurs, will he start showing it this season?

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