Kawhi Leonard has improved every year since joining the league, a testament to his dedication to the game and the San Antonio Spurs' coaching staff. 

Leonard is averaging a career-high 26 points per game, and is one of the NBA's top Most Valuable Player candidates. He does it on both ends, but his ever-improving shooting didn't fall off a tree.

The Spurs and Leonard put in serious work on continuing to develop that aspect of his game. A long form feature on his growth published by Bleacher Report revealed that Kobe Bryant's shooting form was one of their studying devices.

The story gathers insight from a variety of coaches and figures within the Spurs organization on how Leonard has developed over six seasons. Chip Engelland, an assistant coach, explained the importance of players honing their shot.

“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 [Leonard] and get personal with his shot," he said.

Shooting form is one of the hardest things to streamline changes to. While decision making and athleticism are easily tweaked, the natural form someone has repeated thousands of times is difficult to tweak. 

Leonard was up for the challenge and knew it was necessary, and Engelland used two players' shooting forms to adjust Leonard's. Richard Jefferson was one of the models they used to compare Kawhi's shot, but it was Kobe Bryant's form they wanted to emulate. 

“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.’”

Leonard grew up in southern California, so it's likely he saw plenty of Kobe playing basketball on television in his younger days. Bryant was a maniacal worker who meticulously crafted every aspect of his game, and his beautiful shooting form is one of many bits of proof. 

Kawhi's now putting up a career-high 5.3 three-point attempts per game, where as a rookie it was only at 1.7 per game. That's a huge increase and shift of responsibility, but one that has helped develop Leonard into a basketball machine in San Antonio.