Clippers forward Kawhi Leonard met the criteria for postseason award eligibility on Wednesday when he appeared in his 66th game of the season, tweets ESPN’s Bobby Marks. Leonard logged just 12 minutes in one of his first 65 contests, which is why he needed a 66th game to meet that benchmark.
The achievement is notable for a couple reasons. For one, Leonard was viewed by many NBA fans as one of the faces of the new 65-game rule due to his history of load management, though he pushed back against that idea last fall.
More importantly, Leonard has built a solid All-NBA case this season, averaging 23.7 points, 6.1 rebounds, 3.6 assists, and 1.6 steals per game while posting an elite .524/.415/.887 shooting line and playing strong defense. Leonard earned his sixth All-Star nod earlier this season — he has made an All-NBA team in each of his previous five All-Star seasons.
Here’s more on the NBA’s two Los Angeles teams:
- In a pair of stories about Paul George, Eric Pincus of Bleacher Report examines the star forward’s contract situation and considers whether a new deal with the Clippers is the likeliest outcome, while Ohm Youngmisuk of ESPN explores why George has become the model NBA archetype for young NBA wings — as well as for NBA 2K players.
- Making Rui Hachimura a full-time starter has been a huge success for the Lakers and has put the fifth-year forward in position to thrive, as Khobi Price of The Southern California News Group details. Since reinserting Hachimura into the starting five on February 3, the Lakers are 16-7, while the 26-year-old has averaged 15.7 PPG on .584/.453/.667 shooting in those 23 games. Head coach Darvin Ham said that playing alongside other offensive threats has given Hachimura more room to operate. “Him coming off the bench, there was times where they treated him like (LeBron James),” Ham said. “They know how he can definitely score at all three levels. He draws a lot of attention without having those guys on the floor.”
- Zach Kram of The Ringer pushes back on a social media conspiracy theory that the NBA’s referees are favoring the Lakers, explaining that the free throw disparity between Los Angeles and its opponents isn’t out of the ordinary when compared to leaders in that category in previous seasons. Kram points out that the Lakers’ style of play often leads to a free throw advantage because they attempt far fewer three-pointers and more shots at the rim than average on offense, while the opposite is true on defense. The Lakers have taken 435 more free throws than their opponents, but those opponents have attempted 513 more threes than L.A, Kram adds.
I know ham was just making a point, but reading that defenses treated rui like lebron still made me do a double take
I don’t necessarily think the league is out to help the Lakers, in particular, with the free-throw disparity. I think the issue is more on the macro-level – referring to the league’s intentional crackdown on the freedom of playing defense. It just so happens that the Lakers have two players who well know how to take advantage of this push to make offense the focal point of the sport. The Chosen Dud, especially, loves to barrel his way to the basket with body-to-body contact and elbow shoves. Before, the rule was that the defender is entitled to occupy a space to where if the offensive player forces his way into that space and makes contact with the defender, it would be called as an offensive foul. Now – unless the defender is still, has his feet in place and falls backwards upon contact – such contact is typically permitted, and, if there IS a whistle, more often than not it goes against the defender. AD is a relatively boring offensive player, if you think about it. A surefire way for him to draw a foul is to back down and repeatedly bump his defender (the league tried to cut down on this tedious style of play because of Mark Jackson – what happened to the Mark Jackson Rule??). It takes a lot of patience and willpower on the part of the defender to refrain from reaching once he finally sees a glimpse of the basketball.
At the start of the season the NBA said they would cut down on flopping but I have only seen 2 Ts for flopping all season. What needs to be done to make them flop less is be able to give Ts after the game is over when players o are shown on video to be over flopping during a game. Next game they play they are down that point to start the game.
That “explanation” about the free throw disparity with the Lakers is garbage. Also, please explain why Davis and LeFlop rarely, if ever, get called for personals? LeFlop’s percentage of fouls-to-minutes this year is a joke. This has become LeFlop’s league without question and Silver and the Boys are making sure LeFlop gets another ring before he retires.
LeFlop’s foul committing is low because he rarely ever takes chances like the majority of the rest of the league does on defense. There is an infinite number of times when he has the opportunity to provide help defense, but chooses not to for whatever reason. I can’t say for sure, but I’d suspect this is one of the main reasons the Lakers seem to play better, as a whole, when he doesn’t suit up – too often a no-show on defense, and too much of a focal point on offense.
I got to agree on LeBron not playing defense. I notice he hangs out at the top of the key a lot on defense so he can get easy points on fast breaks. Lakers do play better when LeBron is off the floor because they have better defense.
The only legit NBA conspiracies are the Patrick Ewing frozen envelope & Jordan’s 2 year retirement was a suspension for gambling. If you think the refs are out to help the Lakers or have any agenda at all you’re not a serious person.
Hahahaha