Kawhi Leonard starting to shoulder the burden of bearing the San Antonio Spurs standard

For the San Antonio Spurs, the NBA's standard-bearing franchise, it's increasingly clear the responsibility of maintaining their excellence will lie in Kawhi Leonard's hands long-term.

Kawhi Leonard has averaged 24.3 points on 63.0 per cent shooting in the first three games of the San Antonio Spurs' first-round play-offs series. Larry W Smith / EPA / April 24, 2015

The rich, in sports, have an uncanny knack for getting richer, and the San Antonio Spurs are like the NBA's old-money family that have managed their assets particularly well.

One generation, led by the legendary David Robinson, transitioned to the Tim Duncan era in the late 90s, resulting in five titles in 15 years (and counting).

These play-offs are making it clear that Kawhi Leonard is increasingly now in control of the family fortune.

Leonard led San Antonio in an authoritative Game 3 victory on Saturday night, the Spurs holding the Los Angeles Clippers to just 73 points as they went up 2-1 in the best-of-7 series. The fourth-year player, who was the 2014 NBA Finals MVP in the championship-winning series against the Miami Heat, had arguably the finest of his 61 career post-season games.

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He scored a career play-offs best 32 points, on 13-of-18 shooting, he had three steals and two blocks defensively and he hounded whomever it was he guarded on the Los Angeles end.

He spent time on JJ Redick, who scored just seven points on 2-of-7 shooting. He manned up against Blake Griffin, held to 14 points on 6-of-15 shooting.

It was the kind of all-encompassing performance that signifies what is obvious: Kawhi Leonard is the best player on the San Antonio Spurs.

But it also signified something larger about San Antonio: On an increasing number of nights, Kawhi Leonard is really their only star player.

That’s not meant as an insult to Tim Duncan or Tony Parker or Manu Ginobili, but rather simply acknowledging that with a lot of miles under their legs, the nights are more common now when they simply don’t have it.

And it turns out the Spurs are just fine.

We look for these kinds of performances out of young stars in the play-offs, the kind of signature moments that allow us to say a player has taken “the leap”.

It does seem a bit silly to suggest Game 3 was that for Leonard, who after all is already a Finals MVP winner. But consider that Duncan had four points on 2-of-6 shooting. That Parker scored six on 3-of-11. That Ginobili scored two in 17 minutes.

The next leading scorer was Boris Diaw, with 15. If Kawhi Leonard was already the best player on a memorable Spurs team in the 2014 NBA Finals, Saturday is memorable for what he practically did alone.

On a court with Duncan, Parker and Ginobili practically invisible, with Chris Paul, Blake Griffin and DeAndre Jordan on the other side, it was Leonard who had his way. In a series featuring all those giant names, it isn’t even the least bit outlandish to suggest it is Leonard with the highest game-to-game upside.

Kawhi, incontrovertibly, is king in San Antonio.

This year proved Leonard’s best season yet, despite an off year shooting from three-point range. He was a career-low 34.9 per cent from deep, but developed more nuance in his offensive skillset.

He has shown the kind of mid-range fall-away jumper that made Kobe Bryant famous. He has bullied wing defenders around the key, working more around the basket and driving his free-throw rate to a career high.

In his creativity and assertiveness, he took a step forward this year. His assist percentage was a career best and he cut down his turnover percentage, all while taking up more and more of the Spurs’ offensive importance with a career-high usage rate (23.0, up from 18.3 a year ago and 16.4 two years before).

This while reaching the summit as the most fearsome individual defender in the NBA. His defensive rating by BasketballReference was a league-best 96. San Antonio were 12 points better per 100 possessions when he was on the court, second best on the team only to a player, Tiago Spliter, he played over 1,000 minutes more than.

By defensive win shares he was sixth, by win shares per 48 minutes he was the 11th best player in the league. By box plus-minus, seventh. He was seventh in WAR, second in real plus-minus.

“He has really progressed by leaps and bounds on both ends of the floor,” Spurs head coach Gregg Popovich said after Game 3. “He’s turned into a fine offensive player, as well as a defensive player. He’s not a one-trick pony kind of guy. He’s something else.”

It seems not unlikely if he had played more than 64 games he would have made a dent in the MVP conversation.

In many ways Leonard is the perfect successor to Duncan as San Antonio’s lead man. Quietly excellent, steely, fiercely competitive.

And, just 23, Leonard is capable still of surprising us. Of developing new angles to his game and reaching greater heights.

The Spurs have a proud, now decades-long legacy of excellence to maintain.

They may or may not get past the Clippers in this series. They may or may not win one more title to dabble some more icing on Duncan’s cake.

However the 2015 NBA play-offs play out, though, it’s blindingly clear the responsibility for San Antonio’s legacy long-term lies squarely on Kawhi Leonard’s shoulders.

And he looks up to the task of being the family’s standard-bearer.

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