Gregg Popovich: Kawhi Leonard will "be the face of the Spurs" - SportingNews.com

Published Friday, Aug 31, 2012 at 12:34 pm EDT Last updated 4 hours and 14 minutes ago

It was a very productive rookie year for Spurs forward Kawhi Leonard, who finished the year with averages of 7.9 points and 5.1 rebounds and earned a starting job for 39 games. He was even better in the playoffs (8.9 points, 45.0 percent 3-point shooting), which resulted in the distinction of being the rare rookie that coach Gregg Popovich trusts.

While Popovich willingly praised Leonard throughout the season, he gave his biggest stamp of approval to his small forward on Thursday, when he answered questions from fans in a, “Mailbag,” segment on Spurs.com.

Gregg Popovich expects second-year forward Kawhi Leonard to become a star and the face of the San Antonio Spurs. (AP Photo)

Asked about Leonard’s potential, Popovich said, “I think he’s going to be a star. And as time goes on, he’ll be the face of the Spurs, I think. At both ends of the court, he is really a special player. And what makes me be so confident about him is that he wants it so badly.

"He wants to be a good player, I mean a great player. He comes early, he stays late, and he’s coachable, he’s just like a sponge. When you consider he’s only had (two years) of college and no training camp yet, you can see that he’s going to be something else.”

Popovich was also asked about how the Spurs, returning much the same roster that they had last year, can keep up with teams like the Lakers and Heat, who made significant additions. Again, Popovich started with Leonard.

“What other teams do is not in our control, so we'll worry about, as I said, incorporating Kawhi into the program more since he wasn’t here very long,” he said.

“Boris (Diaw), Patty Mills, look for improvement in Danny Green, work our big guys. Tiago (Splitter) and DeJuan Blair I think are going to have very good seasons for us. So we’ll concentrate on that and what we need to do as a group, and we’ll see how we stack up.”