Kawhi Leonard's MVP candidacy imploded in a dud performance against the Warriors
In this, arguably the greatest MVP race in modern NBA history, every game down the stretch is important for the favorites to win the award.
But for Kawhi Leonard, who is by most accounts trailing James Harden, Russell Westbrook, and LeBron James for the award, Wednesday's game against the Golden State Warriors mattered a bit more.
If Leonard, the two-way dynamo, could lead his San Antonio Spurs team to back-to-back wins over the Cleveland Cavs (whom the Spurs blew out Monday) and the Warriors this week, he might make a late push in his candidacy.
But that's not what happened — in fact, Leonard's MVP candidacy collapsed alongside the Spurs Wednesday.
San Antonio blew a 22-point first-half lead to the Warriors in what was eventually a 12-point Golden State win, effectively wrapping up the No. 1 seed in the Western Conference for the victors.
And Leonard wasn't even close to the best player on the court.
In fact, if someone were to have watched only Wednesday's game, it would be easy to come to the conclusion that Klay Thompson was the two-way player on the court worthy of winning the MVP.
Needless to say, that's not the statement that Leonard wanted to make.
It's certainly not the performance he needed to leapfrog three players having historically good seasons.
One game does not make an MVP candidacy — Leonard is still one of the absolute best players in the game — but one poor game, if timed correctly, can sink one.
That's what we saw Wednesday.
The MVP race is a politics game, and Leonard's quiet demeanor and team always meant he had an uphill climb in his MVP candidacy, but the Warriors game, on the heels of the win over the Cavs, provided him a platform that he couldn't create for himself (in the way Russell Westbrook is able to make Wednesday's overtime win over the lowly Orlando Magic somehow a positive for his candidacy).
What Leonard needed was a hyper-efficient offensive game – a silent assassin effort — to go with his always incredible defense. Instead, Draymond Green, Thompson, and even Matt Barnes pestered Leonard when he had the ball most of the night — he ended the game 7-of-20 and 0-for-5 from beyond the arc.
And when the game started slipping away from the Spurs, Leonard didn't do what MVP candidates are supposed to do — take over, stop the bleeding, and reverse the course of the contest. Leonard isn't a player who carries a gravity — it doesn't impede him from being a great player — but the Spurs needed gravity Wednesday.
Furthermore, the Spurs' regular season effectively ended Wednesday — Golden State is now a 99 percent favorite to claim the No. 1 seed in the Western Conference, meaning that the Spurs almost certainly will be the No. 2 seed heading into the playoffs. With seeding effectively locked, there's not much reason for Spurs coach Gregg Popovich to put out his best teams in the final eight games of the season. That means rest for Leonard and his supporting cast and, because the games are watered down, there will be fewer eyeballs on No. 2.
Leonard is going to be an MVP candidate for at least the next half-decade — an incredible accomplishment in its own right — and as his game evolves, he might find himself in a scenario in which he doesn't need big games against the best teams in the league down the stretch to claim the award. But that's what was called for Wednesday and it wasn't delivered. For now, with little to think about until the start of the playoffs, Spurs fans can only hope that it will be used as a learning experience.