Ime Udoka said Jabari Smith Jr. reminds him of Kawhi Leonard back in the day, drawing a direct line to a development path he watched unfold in San Antonio. Udoka, who spent much of Leonard’s tenure there as an assistant coach, said Smith is showing the same kind of early promise that can look modest before it turns into something much bigger.
Leonard, in Udoka’s telling, did not arrive as the finished version of himself. He started as a role player and grew into one of the league’s best two-way talents, with the Spurs gradually expanding his game from a spot-up shooter to a pick-and-roll threat and then to a post-and-isolation scorer. Udoka said that progression mattered because it let Leonard develop at the right pace instead of being pushed before he was ready. “When you talk to Kawhi now, he’s pissed about standing in the corner for three years,” Udoka said. “He felt like he wasted some years, but I think the growth and progression that we had in San Antonio — to become a spot-up shooter to a pick-and-roll guy to a post-and-isolation guy — was good for him, instead of just throwing him in there when he wasn’t ready for it.”
That is the backdrop for Udoka’s comparison, and it is why his remarks landed as commentary on Smith’s development rather than a game recap or roster move. The Spurs model he described depends on patience, structure and a willingness to let a young player earn responsibility in stages, which is the lens he said he sees in Smith. “A little bit of that with Jabari,” Udoka said.
The tension in the comparison is obvious. Leonard eventually became a star, but only after a stretch that left him frustrated with how he was used early in his career. Udoka’s point was not that Smith is already Leonard, but that the same careful progression can matter just as much as raw talent when a team is deciding how fast to push a young player. For Smith, the comparison is flattering; for Udoka, it is an argument for patience.
What happens next is less about the quote than the path it suggests. If Smith develops along a similar line, the conversation around him will move from what he is now to how far the Rockets are willing to expand his game, one step at a time.