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LeBron James and the Los Angeles Lakers are in the NBA Finals. Kawhi Leonard and the Los Angeles Clippers are not.
It’s so rare that I find myself fully smelling this track while FS1’s Nick Wright hits the spot and basks in the glory. I’ll put it down to it’s 2020. But in fact, ahead of this year’s NBA Finals between the Los Angeles Lakers and Miami Heat, me and many others are eating crows with a slice of humble pie.
The reason is to declare Kawhi Leonard the meanest man to play basketball on planet Earth since his stellar 2019 championship and to hold onto that belief until the recent premature collapse of the Clippers.
A bite to eat with LeBron James indisputably holding that title for over a decade. It’s a viewpoint that has obviously now aged just as badly as Leonard’s “We Have Now” in the New Balance Los Angeles commercial that aired just before this season began.
Both LeBron and Kawhi led their teams to a 3-1 lead over the Denver Nuggets in these playoffs. On Saturday night, LeBron closed the door to Denver’s season, scoring 16 points in the fourth to eliminate them, highlighting an outing of 38 points, 16 rebounds and 10 assists in Game 5 to advance to the 10th NBA Finals. of his career; third all-time behind Celtic greats Bill Russell and Sam Jones.
Meanwhile, Kawhi and company squandered consecutive 15-point leads in the second half to lose Games 5 and 6 to Denver when they were up 3-1. Then, with the entire nation waiting for them to come out in Game 7, Kawhi, Paul “Pandemic P”, Lemon Pepper Lou Williams, ran around Pat Beverly, and Doc Rivers, with a 3-1 lead phobia, fell short in A Major. surprise in NBA History.
Kawhi played outstandingly for most of Denver’s first six games of the series, so most of the blame fell on Rivers and George, as it should have. But, Kawhi was scoreless in that final quarter of Game 7 with his season on the line.
With LeBron James advancing against the same squad in a gentleman’s sweep, without the depth that Kawhi had at his disposal, it simply puts Kawhi in second place in focus.
Now, in this business, it’s okay to change your mind after new data flows. Throughout the past season, Kawhi’s playoff run with LeBron sitting at home without making the playoffs, though due to his groin injury on Christmas Day, had a serious effect as a spectator.
No one right-minded would deny that LeBron has remained a more versatile offensive player, from a scoring repertoire standpoint and clearly from a facilitator standpoint.
But, seeing Kawhi’s evolution on offense, being able to operate from the elbow, midpost and three-point line, using an enhanced ball handling ability to patiently get into place and score with ease, all while it’s a takedown. Free throw shooter is something he had little or no ability to when he was drafted in 2011. Quite impressive.
Combine your absurd and consistent offensive brilliance with him as one of the best defenders this league has ever seen, and the best in his forward position alongside Scottie Pippen, although I am embarrassed by this development, I still believe that at the time the argument was there to be had, even if it was never true.
The defensive discrepancy was the biggest obvious advantage Kawhi had. With LeBron taking more defensive plays last year than ever before, understandably certainly with all the mileage that comes with nine appearances in finals, but it can’t be ignored.
With Kawhi’s ability to score just as efficiently with less use and at the same time being an all-time great defender that LeBron isn’t close to at the time, it was fair.
But in the end, if you can’t hold the value of the crown, you have to come down from the throne.
With Kawhi’s Clippers falling in the way of the Nuggets, plus Toronto impressed this season without him and was eliminated just one game away from reaching the Eastern Conference Finals, and lastly recalling the derailed injuries that Kevin Durant and Klay Thompson suffered during the NBA Finals. Kawhi won with Toronto, all slightly diminishing the achievements that led the argument that Kawhi was the best dog.
It turns out that LeBron James is actually spending a full decade and a half as the best basketball player. During the Bush administration to Obama and Trump, from my childhood to my early adulthood, he has been the model of sustained greatness and in the driver’s seat of basketball. Amazing.
Maybe I have to admit that in addition to Kawhi’s two-way greatness and the argument to be the best, it is also true that in any industry, you are desperately looking for something new and brilliant to dub “next”. This is a great example when we jump into this, and for that, LeBron James, I’m so sorry.
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