Kawhi Leonard Facing New Levels of Pressure with DPOY

Prior to the 2014-15 season, only two players in NBA history had won both the Finals MVP and Defensive Player of the Year awards. Those revered athletes were Chicago Bulls icon Michael Jordan and Houston Rockets legend Hakeem Olajuwon.

Kawhi Leonard of the San Antonio Spurs just became the third.

That’s rare air.

Leonard is the first perimeter player to win Defensive Player of the Year since Ron Artest in 2003-04. Before Artest, it hadn’t been done since Gary Payton won in 1995-96 and Jordan took home the hardware in 1987-88.

Leonard is also tied for being the youngest Spurs player to ever win the award.

More significantly, he’s the third-youngest player in NBA history to win the award—by days, not years. He joins Dwight Howard and Alvin Robertson as the only players to do so at 23 years old.

With this historic list of achievements, one could easily assume that the sky is the limit for the 23-year-old small forward. That’s true to an extent, but the historic nature of his accolades create a new level of pressure.

The sky is no longer the limit for Kawhi Leonard; it’s the expectation.

Leonard is coming off of a season in which he averaged 16.5 points, 7.2 rebounds, 2.5 assists, a league-best 2.3 steals, 0.8 blocks and 1.0 3-point field goal made. He did so in a reasonable 31.8 minutes played per game.

The sky is no longer the limit for Kawhi Leonard; it’s the expectation.

As a telling sign of his development, Leonard averaged career-best marks in points, rebounds, assists and steals per 36 minutes. He also got to the line exactly twice as many times as he did last season, going from 126 free throw attempts in 2013-14 to 252 in 2014-15, and posted twice as many double-doubles as he ever had before.

Adversely, Leonard missed 18 games—his third consecutive season with at least 16 absences.

There lies the beginning of the pressure, albeit with the unconventional circumstances of playing for Gregg Popovich. Some of Leonard’s games missed can be chalked up to rest granted by the unorthodox head coach.

With a pair of young league MVPs battling severe injuries in Kevin Durant and Derrick Rose, however, health becomes a factor.

More so than staying healthy, Leonard must now face the incomparable pressure of filling three legendary pairs of shoes. Tim Duncan, Manu Ginobili and Tony Parker are all still playing, but they’re also nearing the end of the road.

Duncan is 38 years old, even if the way he performs on a nightly basis fails to reflect it. Ginobili is 37, and while reliable and productive, he averaged just 22.7 minutes per game during the regular season.

Parker has plenty left in the tank, but this is the third consecutive season in which Parker has been injured during the NBA Playoffs.

Thus, the pressure is elevated even higher in 2015.

The good news is that Parker is expected to play in Game 2. The better news is that Leonard is already rising to the occasion.

The transition from one generation to the next has already begun.

Regardless of how long the Spurs’ Big Three continue to play for, Leonard has become the life of the Spurs as an organization. He’s the star defensive player, whose role transcends that of conventional measures, and is rapidly developing into a dangerous offensive weapon.

Given the prolific nature of his extraordinary achievements, the grace period and learning curve no longer exist. Rather than exemplifying upside, Leonard now personifies the pressure to be great.

The sky is no longer the limit; it’s the expectation.

Next: Which players are under the most pressure in the 2015 NBA Playoffs

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