Minnesota Sports Forum

Q12543 wrote:

I enjoy watching good, competitive basketball too. But I also don't think we'll be a poor basketball team (results or entertainment-wise) if we trade Love. We'd take two steps back to try and take five steps forward. Better than their 40 wins this year, yes, but they had no chance to make it to the conferance final let alone anything higher than that. This is the point I'm illustrating. At some point, the process has to be done correctly with an NBA championship in mind. Hanging on to Love and company right now ensures that our ceiling is capped, barring some good luck in the draft.

10 years without playoff basketball sucks. I get it, but just making the playoffs and knowing that's the potential for the team isn't fully satisfying. If Glen Taylor thinks the way that you do, this franchise really is doomed.

"The best chance this team has of contending in the short-term is to keep Kevin Love."

Really not sure why you started talking about this. We're not contending for a championship with or without Love in the short term.

Camden wrote:Can I throw this tidbit in here too? I've only seen it said maybe once or twice, but it's been on everyone's mind for years now I'd bet. Even with Love our ceiling is capped, unless we get really lucky and strike gold on a draft pick. I'd rather rebuild properly and boost this team's potential than hope to be a 2nd round exit.

I know we're supposed to want to change the culture, but the big goal is to build a winner. I wouldn't be satisfied with a team I knew had no chance at winning a championship.

Then prepare to be dissatisfied as long as Glen is the owner.

I get both sides here. We all want a winner, but it doesn't happen for many teams without a huge stroke of luck (look at Spurs getting #1 pick and Duncan), or drafting perfectly over a long period of time (look at OKC recently). Someone above said it already, but the odds of us, or any team, assembling a perrenial "contender" is very small. I think the best course of action is to show improvement year-to-year, even if it is moderate. Good players don't tend to go to teams on the decline, thus the arguement to keep Love. If you get rid of him, you again signal "rebuild", despite the assets you get in return. In this scenario, you have to get extremely lucky to transform the draft pick assets into star level players, which is far from certain, because you won't be attracting any star level free agents.

I also, however, would agree that Love caps this team a bit as to where they can hit as a contender. I feel this way because, while a great player, he is a 2nd fiddle at best making 1st fiddle money. This is not a reflection on his skill, which is at the top of NBA for bigs, but rather the impact of his position on the game when it matters. IMO, there are only a handful of truly "max" guys out there that can impact the game, and dictate results, on both ends of the floor when a game really matters. Unfortunately, teams are typically forced to pay "max" dollars to their best player, especially in cases of less-than-ideal destination teams, which handcuffs their future ability to build a contender. This is where we, and many others, stand today. If Love is our #1, and we can't find a dominant wing either via draft, trade or FA, then we are certainly capped at a 5-8 seed in the west....at least for near future. Thus, I can see in this scenario why many would want to change direction and take "potential" over what looks to be a sure lower seed in playoffs. But again, history shows that this is a tough road to take as well.

I don't know any more....I think I would lean towards keeping Love and hoping to get lucky in attaining the 1 or 2 other assets to make us true contenders vs starting over and having to hope that we attain 5-6 to get us their.

Durant and Lebron are the only two who would be 1st fiddle to Love. Thats it. I'd of thought the 2nd fiddle argument would of been laughed out by now.

alexftbl8181 wrote:Durant and Lebron are the only two who would be 1st fiddle to Love. Thats it. I'd of thought the 2nd fiddle argument would of been laughed out by now.

If Love is a teams top player that team will never become a true contender. He isn't a great leader, only plays on one end of the court, cherry picks for stats, and isn't a closer. He can be a very strong #2 but, as we've seen first hand, as a #1 his team won't be very successful.

alexftbl8181 wrote:Durant and Lebron are the only two who would be 1st fiddle to Love. Thats it. I'd of thought the 2nd fiddle argument would of been laughed out by now.

Guy has never even seen a .500 record.....if he was truly the 3rd best player in the league, he would have carried even a sorry team to a +.500 record at least once. While Love is a great talent, there are many players more impactful to wins/losses. Love is in a 2nd tier of guys, that while very talented, will need a supporting cast of extremely good complimentary pieces to succeed as a team....most likely including a true #1.

Alex, if you disagree, please show me the "facts" that make Love the 3rd best player in the NBA?

The Rage Monster wrote:

alexftbl8181 wrote:Durant and Lebron are the only two who would be 1st fiddle to Love. Thats it. I'd of thought the 2nd fiddle argument would of been laughed out by now.

If Love is a teams top player that team will never become a true contender. He isn't a great leader, only plays on one end of the court, cherry picks for stats, and isn't a closer. He can be a very strong #2 but, as we've seen first hand, as a #1 his team won't be very successful.

This is such a tired myth and totally ignores the impact Kevin Love has while on the court. As has been stated numerous times in the past, the Wolves are a tale of two teams with Love on the floor versus off of the floor. If he didn't defend, couldn't lead, and only cared about stats, we wouldn't consistently win our match-ups with opposing teams while he was on the floor. Our starting lineup had the second best +/- in the league last year, with only Golden State ahead of us. That doesn't happen without Love.

No, he isn't Kevin Durant or Lebron James or even Chris Paul for that matter. But he's the best PF in the game and could be the best player on a contender, so long as he's surrounded by a strong supporting cast and has the right coach.

Hicks123 wrote:

alexftbl8181 wrote:Durant and Lebron are the only two who would be 1st fiddle to Love. Thats it. I'd of thought the 2nd fiddle argument would of been laughed out by now.

Guy has never even seen a .500 record.....if he was truly the 3rd best player in the league, he would have carried even a sorry team to a +.500 record at least once. While Love is a great talent, there are many players more impactful to wins/losses. Love is in a 2nd tier of guys, that while very talented, will need a supporting cast of extremely good complimentary pieces to succeed as a team....most likely including a true #1.

Alex, if you disagree, please show me the "facts" that make Love the 3rd best player in the NBA?

4th scoring, 2nd rebounding, 1st for pf in assists. 3rd highest per in the league. 5th in +/-. Wolves had the second highest efficiency on the court and 2nd worst in the NBA when he sat.


Most teams score around 100ish points a game. The highest scorers in the league score around 30 a game. That's still 70 points that he has no control over. Even you give him 20 more points if he was the best rbeounder, assist man, and defender, thats still 50 points he has no control over.

Hicks, if he was more of a "leader" would that inspire the bench enough to hold the double digits leads that Love would provide on a nightly basis? Was he not doing enough when JJ would turn the ball over all the time? Was he suppose to teach Rubio how to shoot a 18 foot jumpshot?

I get Love's statistical dominance. My arguement comes from his ability to influence and lead at the end of each and every one of those games that were lost at the very end. When people reference "empty stats", this is often what is meant. Does it mean they have no value, absolutely not. His stats are great, and he adds HUGE value to this team. BUT.......we started the year with like 14 straight games that we lost when 3 points or less. Find me another "top 5 guy" that allows this to happen. Fluky...a bit, but it happened in what was Love's best statistical year. You are correct in that Love certainly has a net positive on the overall game. The issue wasn't with his stats, but his, and the other starters, inability to close when it mattered. While our 2nd unit was certainly the reason why many games came down to the end, Love was on the floor for the last 5 minutes (roughly) of every one of those close losses. Again, find me another top 5 guy that allows this to happen?

Again, much of this has to do with the ability of a PF vs that of a wing player or PG to influence the flow of the game in critical late game minutes. Again, not his fault, but it is the reason why he needs at least an equally skilled or better wing player to HELP him dictate these situations. And I will give you, he can be a 1a type as long as there is 1b wing type on his side.

In the end, while guys like Martin, JJ, Chase, etc were all stinking it up, we pay our Superstar to win those games....not the bench. I didn't see much of that from Love this year.