him the goat SF yet. He is an exceptionally gifted two-way player who has shown tremendous growth over the past few years and is still very young. His career will be fun to watch.

My issue with Kawhi has been his inconsistency. Prior to this season, he never really led the team on offense like some were saying he did. His coming out party was the 2013 NBA Finals, but he was mia in the playoff series leading up to the Finals. Duncan was still the best player on that team. Last year, Kawhi came up short in a great series vs. the Clippers. In game 7, a 39 year old Duncan put up 27/11 while Kawhi put up 13/10. Against OKC, the Spurs needed him to really take over one of those games 4-6, and he played well, just not at a superstar level.

So in short, Kawhi has never really been held accountable to being truly consistent yet. Duncan has quietly bailed him out a lot. No shame in that since he's still young and being groomed. But, he's going to be under the spotlight and judged more critically if people are going to put him in elite category. Hopefully he's up to the challenge.