I mean be the man and lead a team to it. Like dirk did in 2011 or like lebron did last year. Not just being a good cog contributing like leonard was last time. The only example that I can think of is magic his rookie year. Correct me where im wrong but a lot of dudes like mj and lebron couldnt win championships at 25. Ready and willing to emrace counter examples.
http://stats.nba.com/players/passing/#!?sort=AST_POINTS_CREATED&dir=1 Harden is easily #1 in assisted points created. When you add that number with points per game, Harden is #1 in the league over Westbrook. Kawhi Leonard isn't even listed in this assisted points created rank. He's not even #1 on his own team (Tony Parker is). The narrative that Leonard is a 2-way player while Harden isn't is incredibly misleading. Leonard doesn't have even remotely the playmaking skills that Harden/Westbrook/LeBron has. It's an element that's really missing from his game, and the media isn't penalizing him for it. Harden's offensive value alone might actually be superior to Leonard's total value even with defense added.
that's why i asked about your definition because a lot of our stars in the league today start playing well even before 25 in some cases and build upon that.
Kawhi is a beast. Harden is a beast. Rox lost by 2 in a regular season game. We may see them in a 7 game series. NEXT.
I looked up a list of finals mvps 25 or younger and its rare. I dont count kawhis because that was like andre iguodalas finals mvp to me. He was a great player but he didnt carry them. Looks like magic did it twice and kareem did it. Im just very skeptical that this year as THE MAN that kawhi will carry a team to a championship at 25 Usually the older guy stops em. Kinda like hakeem stopped shaq and lebron stopped durant
I don't think anyone has really carried anyone to a championship single handily since probably Dirk. Last year Kyrie was absolutely balling along with Lebron There's no way Kawhi is going to carry the spurs to a ring. He's going to need LA at the very least next to him playing well.
JVG: After the late game sequence, where is he? He's not behind anyone. To me, he's clearly the best defender of the people being considered. He's the only all-star (on his team). They're 2 games behind the team with 4 all-stars. His numbers are off the charts & defense is best in the league. If I could vote today, he'd easily be MVP. When you start comparing, you always diminish someone. They're all having good years. When I say I'd vote for Kawhi or Harden 1-2 either way, it's not diminishing the other guys & what they're doing. LeBron is having another fantastic year. I'm so impressed with Kawhi Leonard. 90% FT shooter, comes up big late, what a great player.
There's nothing to penalize. Kawhi is a fine playmaker, but his contributions in that area don't always show up in the box score. Are you familiar w/ the term "hockey assist"? Kawhi can create the initial mismatch which draws extra defensive attention. He then passes to the open shooter, and as the defense scrambles to keep up, the ball is passed around until the defense surrenders a wide open shot. It's the same reason Olajuwon had such low assist numbers. Do you consider him to be a 2-way player?
Kawhi didn't play today and Spurs still won.. This wont be evidence for Kawhi having help in Pop because it looks like Spurs are going to overtake GSW and torpedo Harden's MVP campaign. what a terrible, no good, very bad day.
It's funny because he would not have voted for Kawhi Leonard before Monday's game. I've never seen a player so astronomically exalted due to a single basketball game. Kawhi went from "great player! People are probably sleeping on him!" to "He's the MVP!" in 24 hours.
Harden made a mistake by playing so well for the whole season. He didn't allow himself the opportunity for a late-season surge that the media would fawn over.
It's the reality. The reality is Harden had to traverse an 82 game mine-field and he tripped on one with the finish line in sight. He's dead.
Indeed. They did all their fawning for Harden back in December, and really, now it's evident that nothing early in the season even matters that much.
shrug.. it is what it is. Silver lining is I don't have to get angry when they don't bring up Harden in the MVP race or diminish what he has done with a mediocre squad. I've come to terms with it.
Kawhi Leonard also doesn't rank high in the hockey assist category. Once again, Parker leads the Spurs. The more passes it takes to get the final result, the less credit the initial passer deserves. Directly finding the open shooter, delivering the perfect pass, and the shooter making the shot is far more difficult and more credit is deserved to the passer. http://stats.nba.com/players/passing/#!?sort=SECONDARY_AST&dir=1
Rockets on their way to finish the second half of the season just above .500 That's not going to get him the MVP, especially with important losses. This team needs to start panicking a bit, they peaked way too early.
