Kawhi Leonard has led the NBA in PER during the playoffs after finishing second in MVP voting last season and likely to finish in the top-3 this year.

"Kawhi Leonard, in my opinion, is the best player in the league right now," said Gregg Popovich.

Leonard also won Defensive Player of the Year during the past two seasons, though he's unlikely to win this season.

David Fizdale spoke glowingly about Kawhi Leonard on Thursday.

Leonard has a PER of 44.8 during the first two playoff games this year against the Memphis Grizzlies.

"First class individual, tireless work from everything I hear about him," said Fizdale. "He was standing next to me the other night and he wasn't breathing. He wasn't breathing.

"I'm going to check the rulebook and find out if robots are allowed to play in the NBA. I think he bleeds antifreeze. He is special, man."

The Golden State Warriors and San Antonio Spurs and are the two teams to rank in the top-10 in both Offensive and Defensive Efficiency to finish the 16-17 NBA season. The Warriors and Spurs also rank first and second in net rating.

At the halfway mark, the Warriors, Spurs and Clippers ranked in the top-10 in both categories. At the 1/4 mark, the Warriors, Clippers and Utah Jazz ranked in the top-10 in both categories. At the 1/8 mark, the Clippers, Spurs and Chicago Bulls ranked in the top-10 in both categories. 

The Toronto Raptors were the closest team to also being in the top-10 on both sides, as they rank sixth in offense and 11th in defense. The Jazz are 12th in offense and third defensively, while the Clippers are fifth in offense and 12th defensively.

The Rockets finish the season ranked third in Net Rating with the second ranked offense and 18th ranked defense.

Last season, the Cleveland Cavaliers, Warriors, Celtics, Charlotte Hornets, Clippers and Spurs finished in the top-10 on both sides of the floor.  

Manu Ginobili remains undecided about whether he will return for a 16th NBA season in 17-18.

“I never said I was retiring,” Ginobili said after shootaround Wednesday morning. “I get this question maybe 40 times a season now. I never said I wasn’t or I was. I just wait and see.”

Ginobili signed a one-year deal worth $14 million last July.

“I think physically, I know what I’m going to be,” Ginobili said. “It’s not going to change much.”

Ginobili also insisted nothing that happens in the playoffs will impact his decision.

“I’m not going to say it’s irrelevant, but pretty close,” Ginobili said. “Winning or not winning is not going to change what I decide to do in the future.”

Gregg Popovich declared that "nobody's going to rest" in the final two games of the San Antonio Spurs' regular season.

The Spurs have rested six players this season for a total of 23 games.

"Our execution at both games, defensively and offensively, was very poor," Popovich said. "Nobody's going to rest. Everybody's going to play. We already rested everybody, and we have days in between now. It's like the playoffs, kind of. There's no back-to-backs. There's no bad travel or anything like that, so it's time for rhythm and that sort of thing. Hopefully we'll play better next week."

Popovich wants to keep the Spurs active and get in a rhythm during the final two games.

The San Antonio Spurs used Richard Jefferson and Kobe Bryant for models to develop the shooting form of Kawhi Leonard.

“Whether a billion hours, a million hours or a thousand hours, everyone has worked on their shot, and every shot’s personal, and not everybody’s willing to change. I didn't have time to spend and get to know him and get personal with his shot.

“I used Richard [Jefferson] as a model and also used Kobe Bryant, because Kobe Bryant has really good shooting form. I didn’t know if Kawhi was a Laker fan or not or a Kobe fan, but you had to respect his work and his shooting. So, we used pictures and video of them. I showed him his pictures of where his was, similar to where Richard was. Kawhi’s smart, and he goes, ‘Let's go to work, let's do it.’”

Gregg Popovich believes Leonard arrived to the Spurs as a better shooter than people realized.

“We saw the work ethic first and then we saw when we put him out on the court, his shot was not broken at all," said Popovich. "It was just the fact he never did it much. So it was like a secret that was hidden, and all of a sudden he’s a pretty good shooter."

“To the outer world, it appears that he has suddenly emerged as an All-Star or an MVP candidate. It seems like he has suddenly showed up and all of a sudden, ‘Wow. This guy’s really good.’," said Chad Forcier.

“I don’t see it that way, and what the outer world can’t see is truly like how much time and actually how slow the process was in terms of the work and the sweat and the commitment and the desire and the day-in-and-day-out process or multiple seasons before we really got to see him grow in terms of the opportunity that Pop began to start to give him.”