Kawhi Leonard steals the ball from his own teammate (Video)

Kawhi Leonard got a steal — from his own teammate — in the San Antonio Spurs’ game against the Denver Nuggets on Thursday night.

You don’t become the Defensive Player of the Year in the NBA without good reason. And Kawhi Leonard has good reason.

Kawhi Leonard steals the ball quite often. We know this. He’s picked off everyone from Stephen Curry to Ben McLemore (twice in the same game) and it’s common knowledge around the league that the ball is never safe when Leonard is around.

But stealing the ball from your own teammate!?

https://twitter.com/BleacherReport/status/817224775277813761

In Thursday’s game against the Nuggets, Leonard came running around Pau Gasol, who was lining up a shot at the arc. He swept the ball from Gasol’s hands and ran it through traffic to the net, where he sank the shot and added two points to the Spurs’ total.

Gasol’s reaction was priceless; after the ball was stripped he threw his hands up in confusion, but then he realized the ball was staying in Spurs territory, and that Leonard was able to score off the pick, which made the steal sting a little less.

Leonard has a long history of stealing the ball. He’s averaging 2.0 steals per game so far this season and has 637 career steals, with a total of 65 so far this season. The way it’s looking, though, is that there needs to be a new category for teammate steals.

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The Spurs went on to win the game 127-99, taking their record to 29-7 while the Denver Nuggets fell to 14-22 on the season.