I don't actually think this past season was Kawhi's best season. Either of his last two "full" seasons in San Antonio he was better in my opinion (higher WS/48, higher VORP, BPM, etc.), plus he played more games so you get more out of him. he also was better awarded those seasons finishing in the top 3 of MVP and winning his 2nd DPOY the first year and finishing 3rd the last full year in San An. And that last year there, they easily could have won the title had Kawhi not gone down in game 1 of the WCF so I don't even know that you can say well he won the title this year so he was better this year.
Yeah, I was wondering the same thing when I was thinking about drafting Kawhi.
(1) 2019 - worst regular season of the 3 years but phenomenal postseason, incredible numbers and led a good but unexceptional team to a title
(2) 2017 - phenomenal year but season ending injury in postseason (which I have a hard time looking past)
(3) 2016 - his passing was his worst. Least success in terms of bringing his team together. Most iso-dependent and
least team orientated on the offensive side of the floor.
I decided 2019 because of the postseason. That carried the most weight with me.
Also it was his 3rd year at near MVP level. That carried weight with me too. Even though we are looking at individual seasons, the years around point to whether something was a fluke or not. How sustainable it was. How well it would translate to other teams and different roles.
So I decided I didn't care about the 20 missed regular season games and rated his postseason leading a team a Championship over his two other postseasons by a large degree. I prefer to think of these guys as healthy (right or wrong).
But yeah, Kawhi's season were uneven.
That did give me pause when thinking about drafting him before deciding to go ahead with it if he were available in the 2nd round and deciding on the 2019 season as my pick.