Meyers Leonard and the battle for confidence

For Leigh Ellis of NBA TV’s The Starters, “the greatest game he’s ever seen,” was the 1987 All-Star Game. More specifically, Ellis holds the game in such high regard because of the clutch free-throw shooting of Rolando Blackman. The Mavs All-Star made that moment so iconic by shouting in celebration, “Confidence baby. Confidence!”

Blackman’s show of confidence was amusing but it was also a public display of his extreme belief in himself. This is an inherent trait in almost every single NBA player. It’s why players boast that they are the best player, shooter, defender, dunker, etc. in the league. For many, confidence is what separated them from other, similarly skilled players, helping launch their careers. In professional basketball, confidence usually comes with the territory.

This though, doesn’t seem to be the case with Trail Blazers big man Meyers Leonard.

Recording a career-low in field goal percent and seeing a three percentage-point decrease in his 3-point shooting (37.7 percent to 34.7) from last season, Leonard also saw his minutes go down from 21.9 to 16.5 per game despite playing in a career-high 74 games. To say the least, Leonard struggled mightily this year, which was the first of the four-year, $41 million deal he signed last summer.

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Leonard is a realist though and is well aware of how his game took a step back this season. But what is surprising about Leonard’s perception of himself is that he is so open about it. Like wide open, telling reporters during his exit interviews that his confidence in himself wasn’t always there this season.

“I would say that it was more that for whatever reason I couldn’t get in a rhythm, which frustrated me,” Leonard said. “There were times when I would start to feel pretty good about how I was playing, and other times not. But I’m still very confident in myself as a player and, as I mentioned, very excited for this summer and actually going to be healthy and able to play a lot.”

“I feel like I have a ton of things I can get better at but I feel like I have a unique skill set to where I can do a lot of different things, I just haven’t gotten the game reps to have the confidence to do different things on the court.”

This is a radical line of thinking and action. Most NBA players never want to show any type of weakness because in doing so, it allows doubt to creep in and opens a window for opponents to take advantage. This is part of human nature, of course, it’s just that usually no one talks about it. For Leonard it seemed like frustrations manifested in doubt which in turn, rattled his confidence.

All of this is quite different from Leonard’s disposition at the start of the season. Fresh off signing his long-term deal, Leonard was filled with enthusiasm and credited an offseason of journaling and meditation to his positive outlook heading into the season.

“I’m in the best place of my life,” Leonard said at media day in September. “Everything just seems so right.”

So what caused Leonard’s disposition to suddenly change change?

Injuries may have played a role. According to CSN Northwest’s Jason Quick, Leonard dealt with hip pain and two herniated discs in his back for a good chunk of the season. Leonard played through these injuries as much as he could and because of them, his athleticism was limited and in turn, he played poorly, which naturally affected his confidence.

Quick also noted before a Blazers-Jazz game late in the season, that Leonard after hearing the microphone under the basket, wished that existed in Portland, because the sound of him making free-throws pre-game brought him confidence.

Again, this is shocking for an NBA player to say. We view them as indestructible gladiators yet Leonard, who is a muscular 7-footer, seems anything but that lately.

Injuries are awful and unfortunately for Leonard, he has had to deal with them for the majority of his five-year career. Yet while everyone can understand injuries, Leonard has rarely stood out even when healthy. He has had flashes, like with his battles with DeMarcus Cousins and the occasional hot shooting night. But overall, Leonard has been more of an afterthought than anything else.

To be fair, Leonard is a backup center and shouldn’t be compared to starting level big men. He is a good team rebounder, can set solid screens and has his moments defensively. But Leonard’s hesitancy to shoot when open and trouble with fouls greatly work against him. Couple this with his No. 11 selection in the 2012 NBA Draft and his long-term contract, and Leonard has become a constant target of criticism for Blazers fans.

Leonard’s contract caused great consternation among the passionate Blazers fan base at the time he signed it, and that continued throughout the season. With him struggling all year after signing such a long-term deal, Blazers fans let Leonard know how they truly felt about him in the team’s last game of the season, Golden State’s Game 4 blowout victory in Portland.

Leonard is no fool. He is quite knowledgeable about the game and is very articulate. So he knows how he is perceived in Portland.

“To be truthful it’s been rather frustrating for a vast majority of my career,” Leonard said.  “I come in here as a youngster at 20 and just simply wanted to improve and do my best and … I feel like I can offer a ton more but … I work well with confidence and kind of feeling good and I don’t know that the … I don’t know that it’s always been kind of reciprocated.”

“But that kind of comes with the territory. This is the best basketball players in the world; this is an elite group of people. I have to continue to work and get better and be my best, and if there’s naysayers, it is what it is. I feel like sometimes maybe it’s a bit much but what can I do about that. Anybody that knows me knows that I could care less, but it is in some different ways still frustrating.”

These frustrations are are part and parcel with Leonard’s struggles on the court. It is more mental than anything else, as Blazers GM Neil Olshey noted.

“We have seen flashes from Meyers in the past,” Olshey said. “We committed to him long term contractually. With Meyers, it’s all confidence. We have guys on our roster who are not lacking confidence, whether it’s justified or not. And with Meyers, it’s literally a day-to-day process to keep his spirits up when things aren’t going the right way, because he doesn’t have the kind of confidence and swagger and almost sociopathic approach to the game that other guys do. He’s not the only young big guy to suffer those kind of ups and downs, but I think everyone has to continue to build trust with him.”

That also doesn’t sound like the biggest vote of confidence in Leonard by Olshey. But perhaps next season could be different for Leonard, especially since he talked at length during his exit interview about playing a lot of pickup this summer and trying to improve his individual offensive game that way.

He also sounded like a player that was looking to rekindle his love with basketball. And if he is able to do that, Leonard’s confidence should improve. His teammates still believe in him, which from a mental standpoint, can only help Leonard.

“It’s time for Meyers to really believe,” Damian Lillard said of Leonard. “And to throw himself into to becoming, what he is capable of becoming. It’s not up to anybody else.”

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“What it really comes down to is his true belief. Once he really starts to believe what he can become, the way everyone else around him believes he can become, that’s when you will see the best Meyers Leonard.”