The San Antonio Spurs have a tendency of quietly producing some of the best players in the league. They did so by drafting Tim Duncan, who is arguably the best power forward in the history of the league.
Similar was the case with Kawhi Leonard. Coming into the league, Kawhi was expected to be a good defensive player. But over the years, he improved his offense as well and truly became one of the best two-way players in the league.
Leonard is someone who is not that outspoken and speaks through his game. His 2019 NBA postseason run with the Toronto Raptors is considered to be the greatest single-player playoff run by many fans and analysts alike.
In all honesty, that year was the peak of Kawhi Leonard as he ended up winning the NBA Championship and also bagged the NBA Finals MVP award. The league was already aware of Kawhi’s talent on the defensive end of the court.
But in that series, Leonard showed the world what he could do on the offensive end of the court. That begs the question of which players was peak Kawhi better than? An NBA fan on Reddit asked the same question in a recent post.
As usual, a lot of NBA fans weighed in on this debate and gave many answers to the question.
SCalifornia831: “Are you comparing peak to peak? Peak for a career? Peak to average? Need clarity to answer this question. Peak Kawhi for 15+ years is likely top 5-10 all time. Peak Kawhi against other great peaks is likely at or below the KG/Dirk range.”
moneybooy: “Rockets fan here and i agree. Harden is not as bad in the playoffs as many people say, but Kawhi has been absurdly dominant at his peak in the postseason.”
tjspill3r: “I would rather have peak Kawhi for one season than this year’s Embiid or Jokic. Probably a minor opinion, but he was the best non-Lebron player at his peak. Freaking dreaded him as a Bucks fan in 2019.”
SpeedMalibu: “Peak Kawhi > Peak KD and i’ll die on that hill.”
xpillindaass: “If kawhi is truly healthy and in his peak form for a season he better than anyone in this era besides bron.”
Great_Huckleberry709: “Peak Kawhi is equal to peak KD and Steph. So that’s better than guys like Harden, Russ, Dame. PG, Jimmy, Melo, Chris.”
Historical-Clerk-755: “Peak Kawhi is better than peak luka so far but I think he’s better than a Karl Malone or Kevin Garnett as well.”
TuqiDuque12: “Peak Kawhi was better then peak KD.”
NotUrAvgShitposter: “Giannis. They’re neck and neck but I’d give Kawhi the slight edge until I see more from Giannis.”
DinnerWithZion: “Peak Kawhi is better than a Karl Malone/John Stockton caliber player.”
Early-Candidate5492: “I’d say peak Kawhi is better than peak KD. I don’t think KD carries Toronto the way Kawhi did.”
2KareDogs: “Peak Kawhi better than anybody not named Lebron, Curry or Giannis. Maybe Jokic too.”
Remote-Picture-8341: “Peak Kawhi is the second best peak after Lebron. If we’re counting playoffs he clears Steph Giannis KD AD Harden.”
cf11basketball: “If we’re talking playoff peak, out of the current stars in the nba he is probably only second to Lebron.”
There were many interesting takes about this debate under the Reddit post. Surprisingly, most of them were fair enough and you could debate that they were correct.
Most fans believed that peak Kawhi was only second to LeBron James in terms of NBA playoffs. After all, he almost single-handedly carried the 2019 Toronto Raptors to a title. Not sure many other players could have achieved that feat with that Raptors roster.
