San Antonio Spurs: Predicting Kawhi Leonard’s NBA2k18 rating

With NBA 2K18 ratings and screenshots becoming public, let’s predict what the rating will be for San Antonio Spurs forward Kawhi Leonard.

On Wednesday, Ronnie 2K of NBA 2K tweeted out that all screenshots of players and ratings in this year’s game were available, and players just had to reach out to him to get them! Considering Kawhi Leonard of the San Antonio Spurs hasn’t tweeted anything since 2015, I guess it is up to me to give a prediction of his rating until it is officially revealed.

To do this we’ll take a look at Leonard’s rating in 2K17 and his stats that led to that rating then, and what his stats from this year can tell us. We’ll also take a look at some of the league’s top players whose ratings have been released, and do some guessing based on that. We should be able to narrow it down pretty well, considering only a few players are on the same level as “The Claw”.

Last Year

Leonard’s rating in NBA 2K17 was a 96. That was better than Stephen Curry and Kevin Durant and tied with James Harden and Russell Westbrook. Only LeBron James had a better rating (97). To net that score, Leonard had just come off an MVP runner-up season averaging 21.2 points, 6.8 rebounds and 1.8 steals per game. He also added 1.0 block per game on his way to a second straight Defensive Player of the Year award.

Now in 2K, good all-around play and stellar individual/help defense are not as important in real life. No, it was Leonard’s shooting percentages and newfound scoring ability that gave him such a high rating. The San Antonio Spurs star increased his percentages across the board and shot .506/.443/.874 in 2015-16 which helped him crack the 20 points per game mark. With Leonard’s now elite shooting and scoring abilities to go along with his overall game, he became one of the top players in last year’s 2K.

This Year

So what can we take away from this year in the NBA and apply to Leonard’s 2K18 rating? Well first off, he went ahead and increased his scoring numbers again, upping his average from 21.2 points per game in 2015-16, to 25.5 in 2016-17. So does that mean his numbers will go up? Not necessarily. Part of why his numbers went up was his increased usage percentage. This statistic went up from 25.8 to 31.1 in the last two seasons. Higher usage percentage usually means you’ll score more points.

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The flip side of this increase is his decrease in shooting percentages from the floor and from three, shooting 48.5 and 38.0 percent respectively. But again, the higher usage percentage plus more shots, means more misses as well. Either way you look at it, his shooting ratings shouldn’t change much based on stats. His ability to shoot/score hasn’t necessarily changed much in the last year, just the number of shots he took.

One stat that could impact his rating this year, is his assists. In 2015-16 Leonard averaged 2.6 assists per game, but in 2016-17 he had 3.5. Again this is partly due to having the ball in his hands more, but showing a new ability to facilitate and run an offense could give him a boost in the game. In 2K17 he had a passing accuracy rating of 52, passing vision rating of 68 and passing IQ rating of 78. Each of these scores should be receiving a bump in this year’s game.

Other Stars

Now we can start this off with a little logic. Ronnie also tweeted this on Wednesday:

So there are two players rated 96+ and two players rated 95. Durant is a 96 and it is likely James is a 96+. It was also revealed that Curry would be a 94 in this year’s game.

That leaves Leonard, Westbrook and Harden to compete for the two 95 ratings. So which one of these three players, who all shared the same rating last year, dropped below the other two? Certainly it can’t be the league MVP who averaged a triple-double last season. In fact, Westbrook might have a case to feel slighted that KD potentially has a higher rating after last year. Westbrook Revenge Season Two!?

That leaves Harden and Leonard, and like Westbrook, it is hard to argue against “The Beard’s” year last year. The latest MVP runner-up averaged 29.1 points, 11.2 assists and 8.1 rebounds per game. And despite the constant ragging of his defense averaged 1.7 steals per game. Which doesn’t always mean much in real life but in 2K, it means something.

So, it is likely that Leonard is not one of these top four ranked players in 2K18. And if he’s not a 95+, what is he? It is hard to argue that his 2016-17 campaign led to him being rated below Curry, considering he was ranked above the then reigning two-time MP in NBA 2K17.

So, with that being said, my official prediction for Kawhi Leonard’s NBA 2K18 rating is…

94

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While you hate to see a decrease, even of a point or two, being among the six highest ranked players in the game is an accomplishment. But we will just have to wait and see to be sure!