Minnesota Sports Forum

Question for the board: Age and cost aside, who would you rather have: Kawhi Leonard or Al Jefferson?

Is this your attempt to get people to pick Johnson over Okafor? If it is that is not a good comp. It'd be would you rather have Ron Artest or Al Jefferson and you take Jefferson in that scenario. If your question was genuine curiosity, you take the finals MVP.

khans2k5 wrote:Is this your attempt to get people to pick Johnson over Okafor? If it is that is not a good comp. It'd be would you rather have Ron Artest or Al Jefferson and you take Jefferson in that scenario. If your question was genuine curiosity, you take the finals MVP.

Not trying to sway anyone's opinion actually. I asked that to find out if people value a skilled/dominant post presence more than a two-way wing with size, or the other way around.

And yes, the comparisons would be Leonard (with 10-15 lbs more) to Johnson and Jefferson to Okafor. It's not perfect, but to me it's hard not to see those players within the prospects.

Without creating a massive argument, Leonard's stats this year are practically the same as Johnson's at Arizona. Obviously you can't compare college and NBA production as the two levels are not the same, but Johnson's strengths and weaknesses are very similar to Leonard's, agreed?

Every time I see Okafor go up with his right hand over his right shoulder it's reminiscent of Jefferson. Both with great footwork down low. Neither are great athletes or defenders for that matter, but due to their length they still rack up a respectable BPG number.

The comparisons have some holes in them. I'm not saying they don't.

Do I think Okafor will be the first pick? Yes.
Do I think he'll be a good NBA player? Yes.
Would I be surprised if Johnson became the better player between the two? Not really, but no one's counting on him to be the best player from this class anyways. I could see him working his way to being that, though.

I don't know...I probably take Leonard. Leonard is a good comp for Johnson, but as a former SoCal boy I was able to follow both of their high school careers. And Leonard is never in the same conversation as Johnson when it comes to SoCal high school legends.

Would you rather have Demarcus Cousins or Leonard? If you're just going off of college stats to make the comparable to Leonard, I'll do the same with Cousins who has very similar stats to Okafor. Cousins has been a beast in the post and a pretty poor jump shooter, so don't try to say his 15 footer differs him from Okafor (last number I saw had him sub 40% with that shot). I think Artest is a way better comparable to Johnson in terms of physical makeup and play style. Artest was a very good player for part of his career, but he couldn't do it all just like Johnson is not going to be able to do it all as you are getting closer and closer to suggesting with every new post about Johnson. Everything I've read about him is that he has a bad jump shot and while it may have improved going into college, the NBA game has made good college shooters look like crap. Johnson could just as easily be the next MKG over being the next Leonard and we simply can't afford to play Ricky and a guy similar to MKG at the same time if we hope to be better than a bottom 10 offense.

khans2k5 wrote:Would you rather have Demarcus Cousins or Leonard? If you're just going off of college stats to make the comparable to Leonard, I'll do the same with Cousins who has very similar stats to Okafor. Cousins has been a beast in the post and a pretty poor jump shooter, so don't try to say his 15 footer differs him from Okafor (last number I saw had him sub 40% with that shot). I think Artest is a way better comparable to Johnson in terms of physical makeup and play style. Artest was a very good player for part of his career, but he couldn't do it all just like Johnson is not going to be able to do it all as you are getting closer and closer to suggesting with every new post about Johnson. Everything I've read about him is that he has a bad jump shot and while it may have improved going into college, the NBA game has made good college shooters look like crap. Johnson could just as easily be the next MKG over being the next Leonard and we simply can't afford to play Ricky and a guy similar to MKG at the same time if we hope to be better than a bottom 10 offense.

Yeah, good comment here.

To answer your question Cam, you go with the skill-set/position that's harder to find and that's the post presence. Also, Jefferson and Okafor are different in that Okafor is flat-out bigger than Al Jefferson. Jefferson does a lot of his work these days facing up from mid-range and doesn't get the type of deep post position that Okafor is able to carve out.

Also, Leonard is a classic Spur product. They were able to put him in their system and now suddenly he shoots way better than he did in college. It also helps that he's playing with and coached by future hall-of-famers (as an aside, I bet if Robbie Hummel played for the Spurs, he'd shoot 40% from 3 and be able to fit right into their rotation). That's not to say that Kawhi isn't a very talented dude, but he was put in the absolute PERFECT situation.

Now we're changing the game a bit aren't we? Cousins and Okafor aren't all that similar to me, but for the sake of the talk, let's continue. (khans: I wasn't using just stats to make the Leonard/Johnson comparison. Eye test says the same thing to me.)

"...just like Johnson is not going to be able to do it all as you are getting closer and closer to suggesting with every new post about Johnson."

Where the hell did that come from? I'm not suggesting he's Durant or LeBron, never did. I'd appreciate it if you didn't embellish your post when replying to me. That'd be swell.

"Everything I've read about him is that he has a bad jump shot and while it may have improved going into college, the NBA game has made good college shooters look like crap."

Why is it fair for you to assume the trend doesn't continue upwards? I get the concern about college shooting numbers (Wes Johnson, Derrick Williams, Anthony Bennett, etc.). I really do, but this guy has shown big leaps in that part of his game, and shooting is largely improvable by correct repetition. He's also pretty damn crafty at getting in the paint at finishing, plus he's built like a Mack truck. Reading only gets you so far, I guess.

Your point about Johnson possibly being the next MKG means next to nothing. Okafor could be the next Kwame Brown. He won't be, and Johnson doesn't have nearly the problems MKG did with his shooting, and you know all of that. Every draft pick has boom or bust potential. I think both of these guys will be successful, though.

Q, post players are a hard find, but as Wolves fan know too well, so are great wing players. SF might be the shallowest position in basketball actually. Also, I'm not sure how Okafor's all that bigger than Jefferson like you suggest. 6'11, 272 lbs with a 7'5 wingspan. That's Okafor. In 2004, Jefferson was 6'10, 263 lbs with a 7'3 wingspan and I'm pretty sure Big Al has gained some weight since then. ESPN, although not always accurate, has Al listed at 289 lbs. Point is: the two are comparably close in size.

I didn't mean for you to discuss how Kawhi became the player Kawhi is today. I think we all realize he wouldn't be the player he is without Pop and the Spurs. I also think it's more than fair to say that Johnson's a better talent than Leonard was coming out of college. I wanted an answer based on Al vs Kawhi with no outside factors involved, such as Pop's coaching. Comparing A vs B so to speak.

Look, I wasn't saying Johnson should get picked before Okafor. I wasn't suggesting Johnson is the next LeBron. I wasn't suggesting that Kawhi would be Kawhi if he was on another team. I'm simply asking if you were starting a team today, would you rather have Kawhi or Al and age/money/etc. doesn't matter. What do you value more? Offense from the post and OK rim protection or a two-way wing?

Camden0916 wrote:Now we're changing the game a bit aren't we? Cousins and Okafor aren't all that similar to me, but for the sake of the talk, let's continue. (khans: I wasn't using just stats to make the Leonard/Johnson comparison. Eye test says the same thing to me.)

"...just like Johnson is not going to be able to do it all as you are getting closer and closer to suggesting with every new post about Johnson."

Where the hell did that come from? I'm not suggesting he's Durant or LeBron, never did. I'd appreciate it if you didn't embellish your post when replying to me. That'd be swell.

"Everything I've read about him is that he has a bad jump shot and while it may have improved going into college, the NBA game has made good college shooters look like crap."

Why is it fair for you to assume the trend doesn't continue upwards? I get the concern about college shooting numbers (Wes Johnson, Derrick Williams, Anthony Bennett, etc.). I really do, but this guy has shown big leaps in that part of his game, and shooting is largely improvable by correct repetition. He's also pretty damn crafty at getting in the paint at finishing, plus he's built like a Mack truck. Reading only gets you so far, I guess.

Your point about Johnson possibly being the next MKG means next to nothing. Okafor could be the next Kwame Brown. He won't be, and Johnson doesn't have nearly the problems MKG did with his shooting, and you know all of that. Every draft pick has boom or bust potential. I think both of these guys will be successful, though.

You've described him as a two way wing built like a brick shithouse who will be an elite defender, can score in multiple ways and will develop a jump shot. How is that not doing everything? The only thing not mentioned in that description is playmaking which traditional SF's are not responsible for doing. Please tell me how that is not doing everything? It's totally fair to question whether his shooting will translate to the next level when the word flat is associated with his jump shot. It has taken Ricky years to put arc in his shot so why is it unfair to question if Johnson is going to learn it. That is a legitimate question and you truly have too many rose colored glasses on the guy if you're just going to throw that question out of the window because he showed some improvement in one year of college. When it comes to shooting and the transfer from college to the pros, it gets worse a vast majority of times not better. There have been much better shooters in college than Johnson not make the transition well at all so it is much more unfair of you to just assume there is no red flag there because of one college season than for me to question it. Stauskas was a sniper in college and he's shooting 28% from 3 this year. Again, it makes no sense to just overlook that part of Johnson's game like he's going to learn it easy-least, no problem.

Nice paragraph, khans, but I'm not overlooking Johnson's shooting nor do I have rose-colored glasses or am I throwing an issue out the window. More nonsense in your post, but I guess that isn't going to change. I'm just not ready to compare him to MKG and his disaster of a shot like you did so easily. And there have been players who shot well in college who went on to shoot the ball well in the NBA, even without volume. Kawhi Leonard, Vic Oladipo, Jimmy Butler, Rudy Gay, etc.

(By the way, MKG shot 26% from three in college with historically bad mechanics. I think everybody knew he wasn't a shooter, nor would that ever not be a weakness of his. Horrendous comparison to Johnson.)

And if a player doesn't make plays for others, how is he a do-it-all player? That's a doing-it-all-except-for-playmaking player, which takes far too long to type. I'll put in in writing for you, though. Johnson scores, defends and rebounds. Sound the alarm. I guess he isn't LeBron. Oh well. Good thing I wasn't making him out to be.

(Johnson scores the majority of his points in the paint and at the free throw line anyways. Nobody's asking him to be Kyle Korver and earn paychecks behind the arc. All he has to do is keep the defense honest, and so far in college, he has.)