Written by Seth Partnow at WashingtonPost.com
Kawhi Leonard of the San Antonio Spurs is the rarest of players who exerts truly elite influence on both ends of the floor. Not since LeBron James in his earliest Miami days has a player combined an all-defense level play with all-world efficiency on high volume on the offensive end.
While not quite as prolific a three point shooter as Stephen Curry or J.J. Redick, Leonard is shooting with similar accuracy on nearly four attempts a game is extremely impressive.
So to have Leonard, the reigning defensive player of the year and a front-runner (alongside Draymond Green) for this year’s award flirting with 50 percent from three-point range is an enormous advantage for the Spurs.
More frequently, “three and D” players are good shooters and adequate defenders, or good defenders who shoot just well enough to not be ignored while spotted up. Players who do both well are highly sought after in the NBA economy, as shown by the very near max contracts given to DeMarre Carroll and Khris Middleton last offseason.
Ian Levy of Nylon Calculus detailed the “three-and-D-ness” of every player in the NBA on Wednesday, measuring three point shooting success against defensive impact as measured by Basketball-Reference.com’s Defensive Box Score Plus/Minus, or DBPM, a box score estimate of the defensive points per 100 possessions a player contributed above a league-average player, translated to an average team. As the chart below shows, at this year’s all-star break, Leonard leads the league in both categories
Measuring individual defense, especially on the perimeter, is difficult. DBPM, used above, necessarily rewards player who collect blocks, steals and defensive rebounds. While these stats are quite often indicators of good defense, they aren’t perfect. Some excellent defenders, such as Klay Thompson and to a lesser extent Redick, do not collect a lot of these sexier defensive stats, thus can appear poor defenders. On the other hand, players who collect rebounds such as Kevin Love or gamble often for steals such as Russell Westbrook can be overrated.
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