Glen Fires the First Shots at Love

[Lipoli390]

He's made some mistakes and said some dumb things in the past but I'm not understanding the resentment towards Taylor based on these comments. Everything he said is accurate, this isn't like the KG situation where he was clearly just bitter and said things that weren't even true. Love forced his way out when the team finally gained some upward momentum, to make Taylor out to be the bad guy in this situation based on truthful comments he made is ridiculous.

It's not about "telling the truth"... it's about public relations or protecting the "brand". Regardless in how truthful his comments were, they are perceived poorly. Because they make the Wolves look petty.

There was no reason... no positive end game... to rip the 2nd best player in franchise history on the way out the door. Just move on.

Exactly, Abe! Even worse that much of what Taylor said was either factually inaccurate, incredibly petty or simply riduculous.

As for the inaccurate and absurd : Love is not foul prone. And it's beyond absurd to suggest that a top 5-10 player in the entire League by every objective measure and every subjective expert opinion is only the third best player on the Cavs behind the still largely unproven Kyrie Irving. It's also at least arguable whether Love is injury prone.

Finally, it was beyond petty to say that the Cavs should be concerned about giving Love a 5-year deal because of Love's injury history -- especially after saying he would have given the five year deal himself in retrospect.

[mjs34]

I don't see any reason why anybody in this organization should "wish him all the best in Cleveland", but there is no reason to come off as petty either. Better to just move on and focus on our bright future.

Short and Sweet Cool. Couldn't agree more.

[AbeVigodaLive]

Love's response.

http://espn.go.com/nba/story/_/id/11417244/kevin-love-cleveland-cavaliers-says-minnesota-timberwolves-owner-focus-own-team

Pretty good in my opinion. Taylor needed to move forward as soon as this trade was complete. He admitted that they should have gone a longer contract, he can have his opinion's, but sometimes sharing them makes you an asshole.

In my opinion... ESPN comes off looking even worse than Glen Taylor. But nobody will call them on it, of course.

The headline on ESPN's front page: "Love tells Wolves owner to mind own business"

Now read the opening sentence in the link above: "New Cleveland Cavaliers forward Kevin Love has a message for Minnesota Timberwolves owner Glen Taylor: Quit worrying about me and focus on your team instead."

Wow. That's taking some liberty... to ridiculous lengths.

I know TMZ is popular. And ESPN is moving toward that style of "journalism" more and more. People love drama. But Love's comments were anything BUT incendiary. He actually diffused the situation with a very bland answer that was closer to positive than negative.

[AbeVigodaLive]

He's made some mistakes and said some dumb things in the past but I'm not understanding the resentment towards Taylor based on these comments. Everything he said is accurate, this isn't like the KG situation where he was clearly just bitter and said things that weren't even true. Love forced his way out when the team finally gained some upward momentum, to make Taylor out to be the bad guy in this situation based on truthful comments he made is ridiculous.

It's not about "telling the truth"... it's about public relations or protecting the "brand". Regardless in how truthful his comments were, they are perceived poorly. Because they make the Wolves look petty.

There was no reason... no positive end game... to rip the 2nd best player in franchise history on the way out the door. Just move on.

Exactly, Abe! Even worse that much of what Taylor said was either factually inaccurate, incredibly petty or simply riduculous.

As for the inaccurate and absurd : Love is not foul prone. And it's beyond absurd to suggest that a top 5-10 player in the entire League by every objective measure and every subjective expert opinion is only the third best player on the Cavs behind the still largely unproven Kyrie Irving. It's also at least arguable whether Love is injury prone.

Finally, it was beyond petty to say that the Cavs should be concerned about giving Love a 5-year deal because of Love's injury history -- especially after saying he would have given the five year deal himself in retrospect.

Love fouls 1.8 times per game. That "foul-prone" comment threw me too.

[bleedspeed]

If I am building a team I would take Irving before Love, but to put along side LeBron. I would pick Love over Irving. It will be interesting to see if the Cav's would have been better off trading us Irving then Wiggins.

Waiters/Wiggins/LeBron/Love/Varejao

That looks more balanced then

Irving/Waiters/LeBron/Love/Varejao to me.

We will see how good Wiggins really is in time.

[60WinTim]

I am in no way defending Taylor because he was wrong for opening his mouth. But I believe the "foul prone" comment referred to the times Love would try to play defense, he tended to pick up fouls. So he stopped playing defense.

[AbeVigodaLive]

I am in no way defending Taylor because he was wrong for opening his mouth. But I believe the "foul prone" comment referred to the times Love would try to play defense, he tended to pick up fouls. So he stopped playing defense.

Maybe.

But I thought it was largely accepted that Love showed improvement on the defensive side of the ball this past season... and coincidentally... averaged fewer fouls than ever before.

[mjs34]

I've changed my mind. I think Glen should have let Love have it, and it's because of all the BS that normally gets printed on blogs and by so called journalists that either take things out of context, straight out make things up, or write blatant lies. Here is an article that does just that, that I found on KFAN. I posted the link to KFAN because I don't think the author should get his web hits. I think these guys care more about hits than they do the truth. Scroll down a couple posts to read some of the BS.

http://72.32.131.210/viewtopic.php?f=16&t=282273&sid=f4d7ded86e8da8e6104770e885a9b835


The article basically blames Taylor, Kahn and Rambis for our current situation. I would place most of the blame on Adelman, who I think did way more damage in his time here than Rambis did. I also think Love should shoulder a good portion of the blame as well, right along with the media who continue to fan the flames.

Curry wasn't a no-brainer. There were questions about his level of competition (playing for Davidson), fraility (which has proven true, which is why he doesn't play defense), and his refusal to workout for us as well as his agent telling us not to draft him. Flynn didn't workout because he suffered a castrophic hip injury, but was still traded for significant assets. We were offered the #10 pick in the following draft for him, IIRC.

Flip had a payroll of around 68 mil last season after signing Pek (12mil), Martin (7mil), Brewer (5mil), Bud (5mil), Turiaf and Hummel (2mil) as well as picking up DC's option for 2 mil. That is 33 mil in salaries last season that Flip was responsible for. He traded Ridnour which was about 4 mil of that. That sure sounds like a lot of cap flexibility to me. Minny has one outstanding first rounder promised elsewhere, just like we did when Kahn took over.

Neither Kahn's nor Flip's whirlwind seasons would have happened if Love wasn't crying to the media about winning.

Does anyone think NY, Cleveland, Washington, Charlotte, etc. were any better of a team than the wolves. We lost a huge amount of close games in the first half of the season. How many could have gone the other way had Love given 100% on the defensive end? I wasn't expecting a good defensive player, but just the effort could have decided those games. Who thinks Phoenix had more talent on their team last season, or Dallas for that matter? Seems like this teams biggest failure was Adelman.

I am also tired of hearing the 3 year ETO. Love was given a 4 year deal for max money. He lost one year of guaranteed money in the event of an injury, but would have made all of that up and more on his next deal because he would have gotten a vet contract at 30% instead of the 25% he is currently seeing. Kahn explained that Love at the time of the extension. Love came into camp out of shape the following season and promptly injured himself. Don't preach the BS that he was 100% commited.

[longstrangetrip [enjin:6600564]]

Love will always be a polarizing character. You can see it on this board...some guys love him, and some detest him. But nobody is going to change their opinion of Love based on anything that Glen Taylor says. Glen's uninformed comments do nothing except make himself look petty and small. He would have looked better (and frankly said a lot more) if he had just said "Kevin Love is not on our roster anymore, so I have no comment. I like our team a lot going forward". Period.

Kurt Rambis used to speak to my breakfast club a couple times a year and always had negative things to say about Love. While comments from somebody who worked with Kevin everyday meant a lot more to me than any words from Glen, I still found it to be bad form by Rambis. I loved Rambis as a player, but he lost me when he used that platform to rip a player.

Everyone should just leave the Kevin Love bashing to me :) .

[worldK]

I've changed my mind. I think Glen should have let Love have it, and it's because of all the BS that normally gets printed on blogs and by so called journalists that either take things out of context, straight out make things up, or write blatant lies. Here is an article that does just that, that I found on KFAN. I posted the link to KFAN because I don't think the author should get his web hits. I think these guys care more about hits than they do the truth. Scroll down a couple posts to read some of the BS.

http://72.32.131.210/viewtopic.php?f=16&t=282273&sid=f4d7ded86e8da8e6104770e885a9b835


The article basically blames Taylor, Kahn and Rambis for our current situation. I would place most of the blame on Adelman, who I think did way more damage in his time here than Rambis did. I also think Love should shoulder a good portion of the blame as well, right along with the media who continue to fan the flames.

Curry wasn't a no-brainer. There were questions about his level of competition (playing for Davidson), fraility (which has proven true, which is why he doesn't play defense), and his refusal to workout for us as well as his agent telling us not to draft him. Flynn didn't workout because he suffered a castrophic hip injury, but was still traded for significant assets. We were offered the #10 pick in the following draft for him, IIRC.

Flip had a payroll of around 68 mil last season after signing Pek (12mil), Martin (7mil), Brewer (5mil), Bud (5mil), Turiaf and Hummel (2mil) as well as picking up DC's option for 2 mil. That is 33 mil in salaries last season that Flip was responsible for. He traded Ridnour which was about 4 mil of that. That sure sounds like a lot of cap flexibility to me. Minny has one outstanding first rounder promised elsewhere, just like we did when Kahn took over.

Neither Kahn's nor Flip's whirlwind seasons would have happened if Love wasn't crying to the media about winning.

Does anyone think NY, Cleveland, Washington, Charlotte, etc. were any better of a team than the wolves. We lost a huge amount of close games in the first half of the season. How many could have gone the other way had Love given 100% on the defensive end? I wasn't expecting a good defensive player, but just the effort could have decided those games. Who thinks Phoenix had more talent on their team last season, or Dallas for that matter? Seems like this teams biggest failure was Adelman.

I am also tired of hearing the 3 year ETO. Love was given a 4 year deal for max money. He lost one year of guaranteed money in the event of an injury, but would have made all of that up and more on his next deal because he would have gotten a vet contract at 30% instead of the 25% he is currently seeing. Kahn explained that Love at the time of the extension. Love came into camp out of shape the following season and promptly injured himself. Don't preach the BS that he was 100% commited.

Sjm, i agree with you that All parties involved should be held liable here.

However, I dont agree with you saying that adelman did more damaged than rambis. That is pure adelman hate from you. Yeah he wasnt all in last season but il take him over rambis sitting on his ass almost the entire game while we get blown out repeatedly. It was rambis who started alienating love. Rambis pushed for darco and it cost us our amnesty as we have to used it on darco. Adelman at the very least coached love and pek to their best. Rick almost got us to the playoffs before runio tore his acl. Coached a 31 win team out of us when love was out almost the entire year and rubio about half the seAson. Not to mention pek and ak missing a chunk of games as well. Rambis was a joke of a coach here. His two year stint here see us sink to new lows.