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Kawhi Leonard is so great at defense, he's actually hurting the Spurs
There's something really weird going on with the Spurs.
On the surface, there's absolutely nothing wrong. They're 19-5, with the seventh-best offense and 10th-best defense in the league. Even after the loss at Chicago last Thursday night, they've won 14 of their past 16 games and have to be the odds-on favorite to win the Southwest Division again and secure home court in the first round, even with the emergence of Houston.
So we're not discussing whether the Spurs are a good team. They clearly are. But when you hope to contend with the Warriors, you're judged by different standards. Specifically, it's the defense that is looking like a bit of a red flag, even though, again, the numbers look pretty good overall.
Kawhi Leonard's numbers, on the other hand, tell a different story.
And it's a strange one to follow.
A troubling trend
San Antonio sported the league's best defensive rating last season, has been top-five each of the past four seasons and Leonard is the two-time Defensive Player of the Year. How could defense be anything but a strength for the Spurs?
This chart below is the Spurs' defensive rating with each player on and off court (for players who have played at least 150 minutes) -- with the defensive ratings representing the amount of points the Spurs give up per 100 possessions in those situations. The higher the number in the far right column, the worse the Spurs are defensively with that player on the floor.
Take a close look at that number in red.
OFF ON
MIN DefRtg MIN DefRtg
Kawhi Leonard 322 91.5 782 106.3
Tony Parker 719 99.5 385 106.0
Pau Gasol 526 97.3 578 105.8
LaMarcus Aldridge 414 96.1 690 105.3
Danny Green 722 101.2 382 102.5
Manu Ginobili 732 102.7 372 99.8
Nicolas Laprovittola 952 101.5 152 102.5
Davis Bertans 908 102.2 196 99.6
David Lee 719 103.1 385 99.1
Patty Mills 559 105.4 545 98.0
Kyle Anderson 829 102.2 275 100.0
Jonathon Simmons 671 110.2 433 93.1
Dewayne Dedmon 858 105.4 246 88.7
That's right, the Spurs' defense gives up the most points per 100 possession, is at its worst statistically, when Leonard is on the floor. I know that sounds crazy, but those are the numbers. San Antonio is significantly worse -- 14.8 points per 100 possessions, to be exact -- when he's on the floor. In other words, they go from downright bad on defense to elite when Leonard goes to the bench.
I can hear you all screaming: "This is the problem with analytics! Defensive metrics are flawed! It's about his teammates! This stat means nothing!"
I hear you, and you're right, to a degree. But this trend is too unusual, over a full quarter of the season, for there not to be something weird going on.
Before we look at why, we need to look at a few more defensive metrics for a complete picture. After all, we know Leonard is a great defender. Even people who don't regularly watch basketball can see Leonard's length, positioning, intensity and freakish alien tentacle hands suffocate possessions and conclude he's a good defender.
And yet, the numbers just get worse the deeper you look.
In addition to that really bad overall defensive rating, opponents are shooting 3.8 percent better than their average on the 9.5 shots that Leonard is contesting per game, per NBA.com's tracking data. Furthermore, the defensive rating of each one of the Spurs' eight rotation players gets worse with Leonard on the court, often by double-digits.
And Leonard's personal numbers are not appreciably affected by who he plays with. In fact, he gets better while paired with four of the eight, and only marginally worse with the other four (he is 2.2 points per 100 worse alongside LaMarcus Aldridge, for instance). Here, take a look:
View image on Twitter
All this suggests that it is not Leonard's teammates who are dragging him down, but the other way around. If you want at least some variation of a bottom line, in individual defense, Leonard is only 53rd percentile via Synergy Sports. He was 86th percentile last season.
So we've reached an impasse. We know Leonard is an elite defender. We know he's still locking up whoever he is facing. So how do we explain these numbers, the somewhat small sample size notwithstanding?
Is it possible that Leonard is, in fact, too good a defender?
Kawhisolation
During the Bulls' 95-91 victory over the Spurs, Chicago started out hot. The Bulls shot 50 percent in the first 10 minutes and 50 seconds. Leonard was on the court the whole time, and his primary assignment, Jimmy Butler, was 0 for 3 with a turnover caused by Leonard.
The other four Bulls were 10 of 17. Alone, that isn't terribly noteworthy. That's one quarter of a random game. What happened on those 10 scoring plays, however, is very interesting.
Butler didn't touch the ball. Not once. Didn't get it on a handoff. Didn't take a pass and keep the ball moving. In fact, Butler hardly moved. This is often what is happening with Leonard, who's so good defensively that teams are neutralizing him by effectively removing his man from the equation, putting him out on an island in one-on-one defensive isolation and forcing the other Spurs to defend for themselves.
Here's the first possession for Chicago. Don't watch the ball. Watch Butler.
Second scoring play. Again, don't watch the ball. Watch Butler.
Later in the half ...
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All game long it went this way, and the few times Butler tried to generate offense, he failed, because Leonard was guarding him 80 percent of the time. Butler went 4 of 14 with three turnovers.
But the Bulls had a 107 offensive rating when Butler and Leonard were on the floor together, which is stellar.
The Spurs eventually switched it up and put Leonard on Dwyane Wade, who had been carving them up. So Butler backed down his defender, drawing the eyes of Leonard looking to help over, and Wade got an easy cut when Leonard fell asleep for a rare moment.
At one point, the Bulls kept Butler this high in the court the entire time. Jimmy Butler, just hanging out near half-court.
When the Spurs switched Leonard onto Wade, Wade responded by standing so deep in the corner that you can't even see him in the picture below.
By doing this, you neutralize Leonard. He can't guard Robin Lopez, he's not big or strong enough, so if you take your wing out of the play, which subsequently removes Leonard, you end up playing 4 on 4 in a lot of space against four average-to-below-average Spurs defenders.
Some might say this is a strategy that only a team like the Bulls can employ, because they have Wade to make up for the effective absence of Butler, or vice versa. But what about the Magic, who upset San Antonio two weeks ago?
Leonard started out matched up on Aaron Gordon, who finished 5 of 9 for 11 points, but was 1 of 5 in the first quarter when Leonard was all over him. And lookee here:
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Kawhi Leonard is so great at defense, he's actually hurting the Spurs
There's something really weird going on with the Spurs.
On the surface, there's absolutely nothing wrong. They're 19-5, with the seventh-best offense and 10th-best defense in the league. Even after the loss at Chicago last Thursday night, they've won 14 of their past 16 games and have to be the odds-on favorite to win the Southwest Division again and secure home court in the first round, even with the emergence of Houston.
So we're not discussing whether the Spurs are a good team. They clearly are. But when you hope to contend with the Warriors, you're judged by different standards. Specifically, it's the defense that is looking like a bit of a red flag, even though, again, the numbers look pretty good overall.
Kawhi Leonard's numbers, on the other hand, tell a different story.
And it's a strange one to follow.
A troubling trend
San Antonio sported the league's best defensive rating last season, has been top-five each of the past four seasons and Leonard is the two-time Defensive Player of the Year. How could defense be anything but a strength for the Spurs?
This chart below is the Spurs' defensive rating with each player on and off court (for players who have played at least 150 minutes) -- with the defensive ratings representing the amount of points the Spurs give up per 100 possessions in those situations. The higher the number in the far right column, the worse the Spurs are defensively with that player on the floor.
Take a close look at that number in red.
OFF ON
MIN DefRtg MIN DefRtg
Kawhi Leonard 322 91.5 782 106.3
Tony Parker 719 99.5 385 106.0
Pau Gasol 526 97.3 578 105.8
LaMarcus Aldridge 414 96.1 690 105.3
Danny Green 722 101.2 382 102.5
Manu Ginobili 732 102.7 372 99.8
Nicolas Laprovittola 952 101.5 152 102.5
Davis Bertans 908 102.2 196 99.6
David Lee 719 103.1 385 99.1
Patty Mills 559 105.4 545 98.0
Kyle Anderson 829 102.2 275 100.0
Jonathon Simmons 671 110.2 433 93.1
Dewayne Dedmon 858 105.4 246 88.7
That's right, the Spurs' defense gives up the most points per 100 possession, is at its worst statistically, when Leonard is on the floor. I know that sounds crazy, but those are the numbers. San Antonio is significantly worse -- 14.8 points per 100 possessions, to be exact -- when he's on the floor. In other words, they go from downright bad on defense to elite when Leonard goes to the bench.
I can hear you all screaming: "This is the problem with analytics! Defensive metrics are flawed! It's about his teammates! This stat means nothing!"
I hear you, and you're right, to a degree. But this trend is too unusual, over a full quarter of the season, for there not to be something weird going on.
Before we look at why, we need to look at a few more defensive metrics for a complete picture. After all, we know Leonard is a great defender. Even people who don't regularly watch basketball can see Leonard's length, positioning, intensity and freakish alien tentacle hands suffocate possessions and conclude he's a good defender.
And yet, the numbers just get worse the deeper you look.
In addition to that really bad overall defensive rating, opponents are shooting 3.8 percent better than their average on the 9.5 shots that Leonard is contesting per game, per NBA.com's tracking data. Furthermore, the defensive rating of each one of the Spurs' eight rotation players gets worse with Leonard on the court, often by double-digits.
And Leonard's personal numbers are not appreciably affected by who he plays with. In fact, he gets better while paired with four of the eight, and only marginally worse with the other four (he is 2.2 points per 100 worse alongside LaMarcus Aldridge, for instance). Here, take a look:
View image on Twitter
All this suggests that it is not Leonard's teammates who are dragging him down, but the other way around. If you want at least some variation of a bottom line, in individual defense, Leonard is only 53rd percentile via Synergy Sports. He was 86th percentile last season.
So we've reached an impasse. We know Leonard is an elite defender. We know he's still locking up whoever he is facing. So how do we explain these numbers, the somewhat small sample size notwithstanding?
Is it possible that Leonard is, in fact, too good a defender?
Kawhisolation
During the Bulls' 95-91 victory over the Spurs, Chicago started out hot. The Bulls shot 50 percent in the first 10 minutes and 50 seconds. Leonard was on the court the whole time, and his primary assignment, Jimmy Butler, was 0 for 3 with a turnover caused by Leonard.
The other four Bulls were 10 of 17. Alone, that isn't terribly noteworthy. That's one quarter of a random game. What happened on those 10 scoring plays, however, is very interesting.
Butler didn't touch the ball. Not once. Didn't get it on a handoff. Didn't take a pass and keep the ball moving. In fact, Butler hardly moved. This is often what is happening with Leonard, who's so good defensively that teams are neutralizing him by effectively removing his man from the equation, putting him out on an island in one-on-one defensive isolation and forcing the other Spurs to defend for themselves.
Here's the first possession for Chicago. Don't watch the ball. Watch Butler.
Second scoring play. Again, don't watch the ball. Watch Butler.
Later in the half ...
SPONSORED BY HONDA
Don’t Miss the Happy Honda Days Sales Event!
Get into the holiday spirit with a deal on a new 2017 Honda Accord.
All game long it went this way, and the few times Butler tried to generate offense, he failed, because Leonard was guarding him 80 percent of the time. Butler went 4 of 14 with three turnovers.
But the Bulls had a 107 offensive rating when Butler and Leonard were on the floor together, which is stellar.
The Spurs eventually switched it up and put Leonard on Dwyane Wade, who had been carving them up. So Butler backed down his defender, drawing the eyes of Leonard looking to help over, and Wade got an easy cut when Leonard fell asleep for a rare moment.
At one point, the Bulls kept Butler this high in the court the entire time. Jimmy Butler, just hanging out near half-court.
When the Spurs switched Leonard onto Wade, Wade responded by standing so deep in the corner that you can't even see him in the picture below.
By doing this, you neutralize Leonard. He can't guard Robin Lopez, he's not big or strong enough, so if you take your wing out of the play, which subsequently removes Leonard, you end up playing 4 on 4 in a lot of space against four average-to-below-average Spurs defenders.
Some might say this is a strategy that only a team like the Bulls can employ, because they have Wade to make up for the effective absence of Butler, or vice versa. But what about the Magic, who upset San Antonio two weeks ago?
Leonard started out matched up on Aaron Gordon, who finished 5 of 9 for 11 points, but was 1 of 5 in the first quarter when Leonard was all over him. And lookee here:
SPONSORED BY SPORTSLINE
Sports Picks Built from 10,000+ Simulations of Every Game
SportsLine combines the power of data with the insights of insiders to give you in-depth picks and projections for every game.
