After a year like that, a player usually becomes a surefire first-round pick the next time draft season rolls around, as long as his situation remains relatively stable and most signs point toward the chance of a repeat performance. Kawhi is a 24-year-old coming off a Defensive Player of the Year award -- preceded by a Finals MVP trophy in 2014 -- and yet some are hesitant to declare him as a first-round asset for this coming season.
What gives?
In general, the disagreement regarding Leonard's value spans across pundits and fantasy players alike. He currently ranks 15th on FantasyPros.com's Expert Consensus Rankings for 2015-16, ESPN has him at 12th on theirs, and his Yahoo O-Rank is 10. Despite that fringe first-round average price tag, Kawhi has slipped to me in the late second round in a couple of the recent mock drafts I've done. I've also been in or witnessed several debates about his first-round worthiness on different forms of social media, and it's still only early September.
If he finished sixth overall last year, why does it seem like people aren't ready to draft him in that range this year?
In an attempt to bust some myths about Kawhi's value, let's start by looking at his 2014-15 numbers and how they stacked up against other standard-league fantasy assets (where a standard league has 12 teams, 13 players per team, and nine stat categories).
Note: "BBall Monster Values" in the table below refers to BasketballMonster.com's system of assigning a value to each fantasy basketball category, where the standard-league average is represented by 0.0. In other words, anything positive is better than the league average in that category, and anything negative is worse.
| PTS | 3PT | REB | AST | STL | BLK | FG% | FT% | TOV | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2014-15 Averages | 16.5 | 1.0 | 7.2 | 2.5 | 2.3 | 0.8 | 47.9% | 80.2% | 1.5 |
| BBall Monster Values | 0.52 | 0.05 | 0.62 | -0.19 | 3.06 | 0.13 | 0.38 | 0.30 | 0.34 |
Jack of All Trades, Master of One
One argument against drafting Kawhi Leonard early is that his numbers aren't considered very "flashy." Of the players who finished as a top-12 value in nine-category leagues last year, Kawhi and All-Star and MVP aspirations, or just continue taking away from the old guys?
| 2012-13 Usage | 2013-14 Usage | 2014-15 Usage | 2012-13 FGA | 2013-14 FGA | 2014-15 FGA | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| K.Leonard | 16.4% | 18.3% | 23.0% | 9.1 | 9.8 | 12.8 |
| T.Duncan | 27.8% | 25.2% | 22.2% | 14.1 | 12.2 | 10.6 |
| T.Parker | 27.7% | 26.5% | 24.5% | 15.1 | 13.4 | 12.2 |
| M.Ginobili | 25.2% | 24.7% | 23.9% | 9.0 | 9.2 | 8.4 |
Tim Duncan, Tony Parker, and Manu Ginobili have all seen their Usage Rates and shots per game diminish over the last three years, while Kawhi Leonard's have been heading in the opposite direction. Why would San Antonio choose to buck that trend as the Spurs' big three gets even further up there in age and while Leonard is entering his prime?
We're all aware of coach Gregg Popovich's penchant for resting his old guys as much as the NBA will allow him to do. Given an extra star to afford him even more rest for Tim, Tony, and Manu, what seems like the more likely scenario: he takes advantage of his newfound embarrassment of riches and continues to lessen the responsibilities of his elder statesmen or that he starts taking away well-earned touches from a young Kawhi Leonard -- the clear-cut future of the franchise?
Conclusion
If you're worried about drafting Kawhi Leonard in the first-round after the obvious studs like Anthony Davis, Stephen Curry, James Harden, Kevin Durant, and LeBron James are all off the board, you shouldn't be. If you're worried about a lack of pizzazz in his stat line, don't sleep on the elite steals and the fact that he's one of the only true nine-category threats the fantasy game has to offer.
If you're concerned about his injury history, good luck finding someone in the first round that doesn't have one. If you think LaMarcus Aldridge could lessen Leonard's value, think again. If anything, shouldn't LMA draw a lot of double teams and create even more opportunities for his teammates?
You can go ahead and skip over Kawhi in the first round of your drafts if you like, but savvy owners will be there to scoop him up and reap the benefits of owning him if you do.