In the wake of Game 3 of the NBA Finals, everybody is talking about Kawhi Leonard. The San Antonio Spurs swingman played excellent defence on LeBron James, and also scored 29 points, including a trio of three-pointers.
Coming into his professional career, you might not have expected that. Leonard shot just 25% from beyond college's shorter three-point arc in his two seasons at San Diego State.
'I wouldn't say he didn't have [good shooting ability] when he came in,' Raptors director of scouting Dan Tolzman said on Wednesday. 'He definitely had the mechanics and the will to work on his game. I think that when you see guys that have a shooting form that's not broken, has got a lot of the right principles and they've got the right mentality toward working at it, it can change in a year. It's not surprising when a guy like him really improves when he makes the jump to the NBA.'
That was instructive to remember as two potential first-round swingmen from this year's draft, Wichita State's Cleanthony Early and Syracuse's Jerami Grant, finished their workouts with the Raptors by bricking shot after long-distance shot on Wednesday. In the drill, the players had to go from spot to spot and attempt three-pointers. As the drill goes on, the players get more and more tired as they ran around the halfcourt. By the end, both Early and Grant were dragging, with the shots flattening out.
Early had more success from three-point range in his first year than his second, slipping to 32% on 148 attempts this year. Grant attempted just 15 three-pointers this year.
'I think that the main part of the wing position in the NBA now is to space the floor and open up the lanes for your guards to get into the lane as well as your bigs, who work on the low block,' Tolzman said. 'A key part of that position is to be able to knock down those shots for sure.'
To that end, Early and Grant still have a lot of work to do. However, in Leonard, they have hope that it all might work out.
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NBA teams can get very scientific and analytical during draft workouts. They use a wide range of metrics to judge a player's abilities.
However, sometimes teams keep it simple, too.
'One thing we do in these workouts is we track wins,' Tolzman said. 'It doesn't matter if it's an individual drill, a team drill, a shooting contest. We just track wins. It seems like the hard-working guys, the competitive guys, they figure out ways to get wins. It might be a three-on-three drill. If their team is always winning, I think it kind of says something about the guy.'
Post By http://sports.nationalpost.com/2014/06/11/emergence-of-kawhi-leonard-instructive-for-nba-prospects/
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