CoolBreeze44 wrote:I don't look at it like - Love is the best we have so he should get a 5 year max. You either deserve it or you don't. It really doesn't matter how good you are relative to the other stiffs on your roster. Kahn did it at the time to maintain flexibility moving forward. And this flexibility plays at least a part in our latest rebuilding effort.
We disagree again. And that's fine.
Personally, I think David Kahn's legacy is one of the worst in modern NBA history.
I actually agree with you on that. We just disagree on his dealings with Love.
CoolBreeze44 wrote:I don't look at it like - Love is the best we have so he should get a 5 year max. You either deserve it or you don't. It really doesn't matter how good you are relative to the other stiffs on your roster. Kahn did it at the time to maintain flexibility moving forward. And this flexibility plays at least a part in our latest rebuilding effort.
Love was a 5 year max guy. The guy became a freaking top 5 MVP candidate. Elite, versatile offensive players deserve the max. End of story. Your ability to win a title should have no bearing on if you get the max or don't because one guy can't win a title. Love wasn't just the best we had. He was the best PF in the league. We aren't even talking about the veteran max either. This is the rookie max worth 5% less total which becomes significant considering 7.5% raises every year.
I personally think it is crazy to use the eventual return we got for him as an influence to make the deal seem like a good move. At the time this board was all bad move or he should leave if we aren't good by the time his option was coming up. Well option 2 happened because we didn't have the time to build it right around him because of the 2 year swing in the deal. Remember, he would have been signed through this year, next year and the next year if he got the 5 year deal. That's a crazy huge swing and who knows what could have happened in that time. Flip still gets to take a swing at Lavine for that second star and had 2 years of Lavine to see if that was a possibility before Love could effectively force his way out. A lot would have been different had we had the option to keep him for 2 more years. What if we get the same injuries and we get a top 10 pick and get WCS? Long-term team of Ricky, Lavine, Brewer, Love, WCS. A lot could have been different and also been viable towards the goal of a title.
I really liked Love and would agree that he was one of the top PF in the league. But this is a business. And it was a decent business decision to not cave on the 5 years. Subsequently Love missed a lot of games, and didn't become the well rounded player it takes to carry a franchise to contender status. And when it's all said and done, I don't see Love being the highest paid player on ANY team that is built to contend for a title.
CoolBreeze44 wrote:I don't look at it like - Love is the best we have so he should get a 5 year max. You either deserve it or you don't. It really doesn't matter how good you are relative to the other stiffs on your roster. Kahn did it at the time to maintain flexibility moving forward. And this flexibility plays at least a part in our latest rebuilding effort.
Love was a 5 year max guy. The guy became a freaking top 5 MVP candidate. Elite, versatile offensive players deserve the max. End of story. Your ability to win a title should have no bearing on if you get the max or don't because one guy can't win a title. Love wasn't just the best we had. He was the best PF in the league. We aren't even talking about the veteran max either. This is the rookie max worth 5% less total which becomes significant considering 7.5% raises every year.
I personally think it is crazy to use the eventual return we got for him as an influence to make the deal seem like a good move. At the time this board was all bad move or he should leave if we aren't good by the time his option was coming up. Well option 2 happened because we didn't have the time to build it right around him because of the 2 year swing in the deal. Remember, he would have been signed through this year, next year and the next year if he got the 5 year deal. That's a crazy huge swing and who knows what could have happened in that time. Flip still gets to take a swing at Lavine for that second star and had 2 years of Lavine to see if that was a possibility before Love could effectively force his way out. A lot would have been different had we had the option to keep him for 2 more years. What if we get the same injuries and we get a top 10 pick and get WCS? Long-term team of Ricky, Lavine, Brewer, Love, WCS. A lot could have been different and also been viable towards the goal of a title.
I really liked Love and would agree that he was one of the top PF in the league. But this is a business. And it was a decent business decision to not cave on the 5 years. Subsequently Love missed a lot of games, and didn't become the well rounded player it takes to carry a franchise to contender status. And when it's all said and done, I don't see Love being the highest paid player on ANY team that is built to contend for a title.
Fair enough. But at the time, the Wolves had IMPROVED to 17 - 65. Winning a title wasn't even a realistic goal. It still isn't...
As the NBA's longest tenured team of missing out on the playoffs (and not even coming close)... Baby Steps. While I don't think that means that they should spin the wheels just for the hell of it... I think the fanbase has/had reached a point where the playoffs are "enough" for a short-term goal. Let's figure out how to get there. Then, we can worry about becoming a championship club. It's just not realistic to go from Step 1 to Step 1,347 super quickly. It just doesn't happen often without a superduper superstar... and even then it takes extraordinary circumstances, luck and other factors.
But don't you think that if you're not focused on being a contender, making the playoffs probably isn't going to happen either? Look at the West this year. 7 of the 8 teams were legitimate contenders.
CoolBreeze44 wrote:But don't you think that if you're not focused on being a contender, making the playoffs probably isn't going to happen either? Look at the West this year. 7 of the 8 teams were legitimate contenders.
Chicken and egg type of thing?
I think this season was a bit of an anomaly. We can look at the East to see a different type of scenario. More importantly, the Wolves are an anomaly onto themselves. Depending on how the Clippers do this postseason, the Wolves could conceivably be considered to have the worst NBA legacy of any NBA team.
It was a 60-loss team before Love arrived. It's a 60+ loss team with him gone. This is a long run of ineptness that most franchises have never seen. That changes the rules a bit. San Antonio can't get away with "let's just make the playoffs." That's not good enough for most Lakers fans. Or even Mavericks fans.
Considering the Wolves have only won 2 playoff series in 26 years... and it requires 3 just to make it to the Finals... Baby Steps might be enough for a lot of us.
CoolBreeze44 wrote:But don't you think that if you're not focused on being a contender, making the playoffs probably isn't going to happen either? Look at the West this year. 7 of the 8 teams were legitimate contenders.
I don't know. It's 50/50 how you can go about it. Teams like the Rockets, Mavs and Hawks have been perennial playoff teams but only the Mavs pulled it off once and for the most part they haven't been true contenders. Their perennial playoff appearances allowed them to get guys like Millsap, Chandler among other vets that fill out their rosters. If you go for broke you have to get multiple stars or you get set back a decade like us because there aren't good vets lining up to play for your team. KG doesn't go to Boston without Pierce and Allen. There have been teams who have started from the bottom and built contenders and teams who have retooled their perennial playoff teams with moderate success.
Can you post the On/Off numbers for each guy so we can see? I'm lazy.
Here is what we can conclude about Rubio and Love's on/off numbers: Other than Love's rookie season and Rubio's second season (when he came back from his ACL injury), the teams they play for are always better with them on the court versus off the court. Love was even a net positive in his infamous knuckle pushup season when he couldn't shoot the ball.
Love has also sported an outright (or "gross") positive +/- when on the court for four consecutive years, which means his teams weren't only worse off with him on the bench - they actually outplayed their opponent when he was on the court.
The other thing about Love is that over the past three seasons, his team has been better not just overall when he's on the court, but also defensively, versus being off the court. While defense certainly isn't his calling card, he's also not as bad at it as people make him out to be. Folks always forget about defensive rebounding and post defense when talking about him. His ability in those aspects somewhat makeup for his lackluster weakside and transition defense.
I thought Love's defense was improved last season.
Did you see the crazy Win Shares stat I shared earlier? Is that just one of those random statistical anomalies... or were the Wolves really that bloody awful outside of him as a team?
AbeVigodaLive wrote:I thought Love's defense was improved last season.
Did you see the crazy Win Shares stat I shared earlier? Is that just one of those random statistical anomalies... or were the Wolves really that bloody awful outside of him as a team?
20+ years is a decent sample size.
I think Win Shares slightly overvalues Love because, like all individual production/efficiency metrics, it doesn't fully account for defense. On the other hand, even if you discount it a bit for Love's not-very-good-but-not-very-bad defense, he's still an incredible talent. Anyone that can score in high volume with high efficiency + get you 12+ rebounds per game is a special, special talent.
I think how Love was treated vs how he acted/treated others while here is pretty much a wash. On one hand he wasn't given the 5 year deal when he was worth it, had to deal with the Kahn/Rambis crap and losing. On the other hand as good as he is he hurt the team on D by complaining & not getting back and we heard grumblings after he left about locker room crap.
He's a great player & talent and you'd be crazy not to want him on your team for the most part. His D is probably about average so pairing him with a good defensive C is ideal. The team you build around a superstar is as important as having that an offensive superstar on your team unless they are solid to great on D. Basically I certainly wouldn't balk at him on this team if it made sense and made the team better at a whole. He's a damn good player.
