Kawhi Leonard (the guy I wanted Morey to draft last year) has averaged 25 points, six rebounds, three assists and 47.2% shooting over his summer league stint. "We want him to rebound it and push it up the floor himself," said Gregg Popovich. "We want to put him in pick-and-rolls and let him make decisions, so he expands his game." Last year the Spurs basically just had Kawhi camp out in the corner and shoot threes, but apparently they have bigger plans for him offensively. “I was standing up, spotting up (during the season). I’m learning to shoot off the dribble, coming off ball screens. I’m trying to get my ball handling better. Also, I’ve got to learn how to pass. I’ve been working on all that.” Early on Kawhi was compared to Bruce Bowen, but now the comparisons are turning more to a poor man's Scottie Pippen. On another note, the Spurs must be using some kind of moneyball system to select players. It is well known that they targeted Kawhi and were frantically trying to trade into a mid lottery pick to get him. It's looking like he may have been the second best player in the draft now. The Spurs' drafting record is too good for them to be using traditional methods to select players.
If Kawhi can develop court vision and handles, he will be a top 3 player out of his draft class. I don't think he has the innate bball awareness to ever be a good passer, but I hope he proves me wrong.
yea i had a special interest in kawhi since i live out here in San Diego. I went to several SDSU games to watch him play. He was a huge local favorite and was super excited when he was still available at 14. Bummer we didnt draft him since he looks to be way better than Morris at this point.
Yup, sometimes you swing and miss, that's the thing when you take risks. He looks like hit a couple triples with Lamb and Motie though.
No doubt Morey has drafted very well, and he's allowed to miss every so often. It's funny how the Spurs knew he would be so good though.
Insane Spurs fact: Starting in '89-90 the only year they didn't finish 1st or 2nd in their division was the Tank for Tim year. They even did that well.
I'm not sure how this is thread worthy. It's just another "we should have drafted Leonard" thread. Second best player in the draft is quite a stretch, when these guys are either better or have a good shot at being better than Leonard: KThompson Parsons Jonas V Irving Donatas Faried Marshon Kanter The spurs drafting hasn't been that great. They benefited from Blair dropping and that's the pick that has stood out recently, but was a no brainer at the time. Where is he now? They drafted Dragic, but immediately traded him for Malik Hairston, cash, and a pick that later turned out to be Blair. Since 06: Cory joseph Adam Hanga James Anderson Ryan Richards Jack McClinton Nando De Colo James Gist Giorgos Printezis Marcus Williams Damir Markota Blair, Splitter, and George Hill have been the only succesful players they have drafted and kept during that time, and again, Blair was a no brainer. I realize they can't draft great players having low picks year after year, but this certainly doesn't show they have some kind of advanced system that allows them them to draft better than other teams at similar spots.
You can't record their drafting by looking at picks, most of which are in the late 50s, that didn't pan out. How many players in the last 5 years have been picked 55 or lower or been undrafted that have been regular contributors? Very, very few. The drafting success record for late 50s picks is something like 5%. It's very possible that there were NO players worth selecting that far down. Also, some of those players have yet to come over from overseas. Also, Getting Blair, Splitter, Hill, and Leonard through the draft in the last five years is impressive because they have only had 4 first round picks in that time, all of them in the 20s. Spurs' draft successes: Kawhi Leonard (round 1 pick 15) DeJuan Blair (round 2 pick 38) George Hill (round 1 pick 28) Tiago Splitter (round 1 pick 28) Ian Mahinmi (round 1 pick 28) Beno Udrih (round 1 pick 28) Luis Scola (round 2 pick 55) (they intended to keep him, but couldn't because of a contract situation) Tony Parker (round 1 pick 28) Manu Gonibli (round 2 pick 57) Also, if you won't believe that they haven't drafted well, just look at their success. They have been a contender for 20 years, and they have done it in a tiny market that no stars will want to sign in and under a small budget.
agreed.. I think the Suns are one of the best teams at drafting and finding decent players in late picks. Jeff Hornacek - 46th pick Dan Marjerle -14th pick Steve Kerr - 50th pick Cedri Ceballos - 48th pick Wesley Person - 23rd pick Michael Finley - 21st pick Steve Nash - 15th pick Stephen Jackson - 42nd pick Shawn Marion 9th pick Amare Stoudemire - 9th pick Marcin Gortat - 57th pick Rajon Rondo - 21st pick * traded to Boston
Leonard was game ready. Spurs needed that so they drafted a player that they knew would contribute right away. Morey went for upside and SF project. Morey did the same as Pop when we drafted Joey Dorsey instead of DeAndre Jordan.
Kawahi is a good player and coming into the draft he was one of those "reached his potential" guys that didn't have super upside. Was a jack of all trades but not really good at one particular thing. That's the main reason he dropped so low. At the same time being in a system like the Spurs has helped him succeed and fit in. I'm not so sure he does as good in another system.
Their drafting isn't consistenly good enough to conclude they're better than most. They hit some home runs almost a decade ago and have been spotty since. Again, i understand they have had late picks to work with, but if it's true that there just wasn't any talent left by then, i can agree it doesn't show they don't draft well, but then it doesn't show they do either, specially better than most, like you've implied. I dont like looking back at drafts using hindsight, especially for late picks, but technically some talent players did get picked after the Spurs' most recent picks. Parsons Jcrawford GVazquez LFields JEvans PMills A more logical conclusion to make is that they had better international scouting, 5 years ago and prior to that. It gave them an edge in drafting Parker, Manu, Scola, barbosa, mahinmi, and even splitter. However, since then, other teams have improved theirs, which is why the spurs aren't stealing players late at the same rate, if at all.
Err, why we don't take a step back here. Coming out of college did anyone in the league project that Leonard would be a very good and versatile scorer? He was stick thin, had mummy arms and had Mascot-sized hands, all of those point to him being a Shawn-Marion type garbage buckets scorer, and his performance in college didn't do anything to alleviate that perception. In fact, that's why a lot of people were saying he's basically an NBA ready player with very limited upside. Now just a year later Leonard has basically become the best all around wing player in the draft, certainly he's performed better than 2nd pick Derrick Williams and 14th pick MM, both guys who were projected to be better scorers. Is it because Leonard has more upside than people gave him credit for? Or is it because the Spurs coaching staff is the best in the world? I think its a mix of both, but more to do with the latter than the former. The Spurs have always been amazing at developing their players. Guys like George Hill were nobodies and they became really good players on the Spurs. Tony Parker started out as Aaron Brooks who can't shoot and now he's hitting 3 pt bombs with no tom, even washed up vets like Jefferson and Boris Diaw became reborn under the Spurs. Hell Pops probably picked up Bruce Bowen sleeping under a bridge somewhere and now his jersey is retired in the Spurs Arena. In fact, I would go so far as to say the only difference between TD, Pau Gasol and Blake Griffin is that PG was drafted by Memphis, BG was drafted by the clips and TD was lucky enough to go to the Spurs. This is why I don't think Leonard pick was a miss by Houston, every draft board out there had MM over Leonard. If the Spurs had gotten a hold of Morris who knows, maybe he'd actually be Melo with defense by now.
He's young with good length and phisical attributes. He's a great defender and rebounder at his position. His shooting is off, but he has decent free throw shooting percentage and improved his 3pt shooting significantly in sophomore year. Hollinger's draft rater picked him up :"Two more perimeter players to like If I had to peg two other perimeter players that I would guarantee to at least become solid rotation players, it would be Kemba Walker andKawhi Leonard. While this year's draft doesn't project to have a lot of star talent at the perimeter positions, Walker and Leonard are the two who rate above 12 -- which, historically, has been a guarantee of at least being decent." Spurs made the right choice and he improved very well. On the other hand, Morris as a tweener(takes more time to develop), is a risk taking move for the upside and may still work at the end.
