Thank You Kevin Love

[Mstermisty [enjin:6864008]]

A great player, no doubt, who had some special moments in a Wolves uniform. But he never took us to the playoffs (and lets keep it real, he never had much help...but either did KG and he got it done every year), and then, under contract for another year, he forced his way out.

I won't miss him nor do I feel the need to thank him. Good riddance K-Love--enjoy the transition from coat drives to riding Lebron's coattails.

[longstrangetrip [enjin:6600564]]

Cam, I fully admit that I have never liked Kevin Love, and that having him as the main man on the Wolves has made it more difficult for me to cheer for them the past 6 years...although I have continued to cheer for them despite my dislike for him personally. And his departure probably makes me more excited about the Wolves than anyone else on this board, because I now have a team where I really like all the key pieces. I'm just not willing to give him a pass by absolving him of any responsibility for the Wolves woes the past 6 years like the Love apologists do. Yes, the front office has made mistakes, but true stars help their teams rise above front office blunders and lead their teams to at least some success (like KG did after some incredible front office blunders), and Love hasn't done that. I can't think of another top ten NBA player who couldn't at least get his team to one playoff game. That's the legacy that I will remember about Kevin Love.

I just don't understand giving Love a pass for the Wolves' futility the during his time here. He couldn't get to the playoffs with Pekovik, Rubio, Martin and Brewer with him in the starting lineup. KG led his 2002-3 team to 51 wins with Szczerbiak, Gill, Hudson, and Nesterovic starting with him. Love wins 20 games with that supporting cast!

I am an unabashed Minnesota sports fan, and I have liked 98% of the local players I have had the pleasure to watch. But being a loyal Minnesota fan doesn't require me to like that 2% of players who I really detest. It takes a world class dink to rub me the wrong way, and Kevin fits the bill. And I suspect that most Minnesota fans agree with me, and we will witness that on January 31 when he gets loudly booed more than any departing star since Chuck Knoblauch...another world class dink (and yes, I was there booing Chuck with almost everyone else in the dome on his homecoming). Minnesota sports fans are unusually kind to its returning players, and almost all returning heroes are greeted with warm applause. I can guarantee you that Kevin's reception will be decidedly different, and that says a lot about Kevin.

I agree that Love is a gifted player, and I have said many times on this board that I enjoyed watching his intensity on the (offensive side of the) court. But I need to admire my heroes for more than athletic prowess...I need them to have character too. And Kevin has demonstrated over and over again that he is deficient in this area. His teammates know that, most of his coaches knew that, and most Timberwolves' fans know that. He's not going to be booed mercilessly on 1/31 because he was a bad player, because he wasn't... he's going to be booed because most people just don't like him. And I don't get personally offended that you have a different opinion...if everyone agreed about everything, this would be a dull board. It's okay that you think Kevin is a good guy, and I think he's not.

Tomorrow will be a celebration day for me with three good guys (who also have potential) coming in and the rare Minnesota player that I don't like going out!

[thedoper]

Thank you Kevin Love for missing every back door cut and then refusing to foul your man when you got burned. He must of needed to make sure he was available in the 4th quarter to shoot 39%.

[longstrangetrip [enjin:6600564]]

Yeah, I don't get the inflated stats accusation LST. So would you have rather him not score efficiently and rebound so much?

On/Off numbers are a simple way to cross-check a player's team impact against their box score output. Other than Love's rookie year, our team ALWAYS did better while he was on the court versus off the court, including the year he was hurt and couldn't shoot for shit. This trend pre-dates Rubio, so we can't say it's all because he played with Ricky. And in most of those seasons, including last year, it was a very significant difference.

I understand that Love isn't always easy to root for as a person. But he is a tremendous basketball player whose front office failed him during his tenure in Minnesota.

Love put up unbelievably good stats, q, but his teams never won (even though he clearly had a better supporting cast last year then Garnett in a 51 win year). I think that's because traditional stats don't do a good enough job of really explaining Kevin's value. His deficiencies in areas that don't draw as much attention as points and rebounds (doper is providing some good examples of these important areas), or are even impossible to measure with numbers, are a major reason for this franchise's futility the past six years. Top ten players lead their teams to the playoffs. Love's inability to do that despite his reputation as a top ten player to me is an unprecedented failure of historic proportion. We expect top ten players to have sparkling on/off numbers...but we also expect them to win.

I wish that Love was going to a team without LeBron James so we could continue to evaluate him objectively. We will never know, but I will continue to believe that Love cannot be a winner unless paired with James (who always has won and always is going to win, regardless of his teammates). Cleveland will win a lot of games next year, but it will be primarily because of the guy who always wins.

[longstrangetrip [enjin:6600564]]

Can someone confirm or deny if this is a Kevin Love tribute thread? Lol

Whoops, my bad, monster...I misread the heading as being sarcastic :oops:

Okay, time for me to go back to the Twins board to tee up a Chuck Knoblauch tribute thread :thumb: .

[maelstrom11 [enjin:6599701]]

LST...Can you list a few examples....

I agree that Love is a gifted player, and I have said many times on this board that I enjoyed watching his intensity on the (offensive side of the) court. But I need to admire my heroes for more than athletic prowess...I need them to have character too. And Kevin has demonstrated over and over again that he is deficient in this area. His teammates know that, most of his coaches knew that, and most Timberwolves' fans know that. He's not going to be booed mercilessly on 1/31 because he was a bad player, because he wasn't... he's going to be booed because most people just don't like him.

What has he done that has demonstrated his extreme deficiencies in character???

Im lost.....I think the worst I can think of is he asked to be traded ....

[khans2k5 [enjin:6608728]]

KG played in a weaker Western conference. He is a top 5 defender of all time and is probably the best defender in the frontcourt of all time. I can still cheer for Love because we'll only have to play him twice a year and he's actually fun to watch given how versatile he is. The Lebron/Love pick and roll might be the most un-guardable play of all time. It's going to be fun to watch. Kahn took a lot of risks and got burned on almost all of them and that is why we are here today. That's a majority of Love's career spent under one of, if not the worst GM of all time. If any GM of ours puts a decent defensive Center on the floor next to Love, wings who aren't the worst shooters in the league and some semblance of an NBA bench, we are a playoff team easy.

[longstrangetrip [enjin:6600564]]

LST...Can you list a few examples....

I agree that Love is a gifted player, and I have said many times on this board that I enjoyed watching his intensity on the (offensive side of the) court. But I need to admire my heroes for more than athletic prowess...I need them to have character too. And Kevin has demonstrated over and over again that he is deficient in this area. His teammates know that, most of his coaches knew that, and most Timberwolves' fans know that. He's not going to be booed mercilessly on 1/31 because he was a bad player, because he wasn't... he's going to be booed because most people just don't like him.

What has he done that has demonstrated his extreme deficiencies in character???

Im lost.....I think the worst I can think of is he asked to be traded ....

Maelstom- Let's start with what I have heard. Any sports writer in Minnesota (other than Sid Hartman) will tell you that Kevin has never been liked by his teammates, and it's certainly not his lack of basketball ability that make him so unlikable. Read between the lines when you read quotes from Rubio and Saunders about Love since year end, and you won't see much unhappiness that he is leaving. Kurt Rambis had nothing good to say about him. (You may not like Kurt Rambis as a coach, but nobody ever doubted his character on or off the court). Stephen A. Smith called Love a "clubhouse cancer". Finally, and I don't like to play this card and haven't before, a good friend of mine is in the ownership group. He's not a basketball guy so we almost never talk basketball and I really don't get any insights from him (he's in the ownership group only because he is a FOG...friend of Glen's), but he did tell me four years ago..."you wouldn't like this guy". He has never said that about any other Timberwolf (although he did tell me some interesting stories about KG that shaped my opinion about him).

But my impression of Love is also based on my own observations. I like guys who bust back on defense, and Kevin has always fallen short in this area. Doesn't set a good tone for the team when your star doesn't think he has to hustle back on defense. I don't like guys who constantly throw their hands up in the air and whine when they think a referee has missed a call. I don't like guys who throw their teammates under the bus, and Kevin would do this periodically rather than put the blame for another loss on his own shoulders like most good leaders do (BTW, I actually noticed some improvement in Kevin in this area the last couple months of the season...I always suspected Saunders or Adelman might have talked to him about it in January).

You mention that he asked to be traded. I don't include that in my negative assessment of his lack of character. But the way he left really rubbed me the wrong way. When a franchise pays you tens of millions of dollars, and its fan base embraces you as a hero and spends money they can't always afford so you can make your millions, I think a man of character would think he owed them something (rather than acting like he had been treated poorly). But instead of respecting the fans that had made him a rich man, he basically rubbed his desire to leave in their collective faces. The whirlwind trip to Boston could have been handled with a lot more grace, rather than the wink-wink way Kevin handled it. Then shortly after that he referred to the team to whom he was still under contract as "they" while smirking his way through an interview. I don't begrudge him his desire to win. But he has gone about the process in a classless way. A man of character would have addressed the fans directly and spoken from the heart. He could have held a press conference and thanked the fans for their support. He could have said he loved his time in Minnesota, but losing was killing him and he felt he had to find another team to have a chance to win. Yes, he would have taken some flack, but that's how a man of character would have handled it. But Kevin is not a man of character, and he has handled his departure the way I would expect him to. I'm sure his agent will write a nice goodbye note to the Minnesota fans that Kevin can sign, and some fans will say "what a nice guy". But it will just be more Love BS and a transparent attempt to get a few fans on his side so that the January booing is perhaps a little less deafening.

I get it, Maelstrom...there are a lot of guys on this board who like Kevin. That's okay, different people see things differently. Others on this board (like me) admire his basketball ability, but think he is a horse's ass. and that's okay too. I just can't ignore the fact that there is so much discussion about Kevin as a person...more than any other T-Wolf I can remember. And one thing I have learned in my many years...when there is a lot of smoke, you better believe there is a lot of fire.

[TAFKASP]

Thank you for raising your hands on missed foul calls and not getting back on D in Cleveland.

^^^ This!

He was certainly fun to watch more often than not but I simply will not miss Love the person. Hopefully none of our young guys turns out to be another petulant child.

[Papalrep]

I agree with everone LOL. Fabulously talented one way player. I compare Kevin to Dirk or Melo, as far as talent.

He was never going to lead us anywhere, but that was not his fault, that's just who he is.

I found it revealing that Ricky said that maybe next season he will stand up and lead (because Kevin wasn't doing it). Adelman was a last ditch effort by Kahn to make up for Rambis, that certainly didn't help.But somehow, I don't think Kevin is going to be missed in the locker room.

But hey - thank you Kevin, for commanding the value you did in this trade. I don't even feel like we loose this deal. In the long run, we are better off. If Kevin wasn't the player he is , this deal would never have happened. Having LeBron request your services says something.

All's well that ends well.