Minnesota Sports Forum

I don't get the arguments I'm reading here hating on our superstar KLove. Barea is a dime a dozen undersized point guard who can get hot once in a while. KLove is a top 5 NBA talent that for some crazy season wants to play basketball in the frozen tundra of Minnesota. Translation: KLove can pretty much say whatever he wants to anyone on the team. If he wants Barea gone then I got a pretty good suspicion Barea will be gone. Barea is in the class of a Nate Robinson or Troy Hudson. Kahn overpaid him and he has a ring and a hot wife so his ego gets pretty big at times. Even to the point that he'll challenge KLove. How would Kobe or Lebron react if they called out Jordan Farmer or Rashard Lewis and then had the answer any media questions about it? Both would laugh in the medias face. Let's get real people if JJ doesnt like it here then pack your bags and we'll ship you off to Milwaukee or Denver.

maelstrom11 wrote:I don't get the arguments I'm reading here hating on our superstar KLove. Barea is a dime a dozen undersized point guard who can get hot once in a while. KLove is a top 5 NBA talent that for some crazy season wants to play basketball in the frozen tundra of Minnesota. Translation: KLove can pretty much say whatever he wants to anyone on the team. If he wants Barea gone then I got a pretty good suspicion Barea will be gone. Barea is in the class of a Nate Robinson or Troy Hudson. Kahn overpaid him and he has a ring and a hot wife so his ego gets pretty big at times. Even to the point that he'll challenge KLove. How would Kobe or Lebron react if they called out Jordan Farmer or Rashard Lewis and then had the answer any media questions about it? Both would laugh in the medias face. Let's get real people if JJ doesnt like it here then pack your bags and we'll ship you off to Milwaukee or Denver.

Agreed. Hopefully we can get a different backup PG for Barea if we do trade him.

KLove is not close to the equivalent of a Lebron or a Kobe. Let's stop these stupid comparisons.

markkbu wrote:KLove is not close to the equivalent of a Lebron or a Kobe. Let's stop these stupid comparisons.

That's not the point. Point was that Love's a top-five talent and he's having to deal with a bench player causing problems.

Camden wrote:

markkbu wrote:KLove is not close to the equivalent of a Lebron or a Kobe. Let's stop these stupid comparisons.

That's not the point. Point was that Love's a top-five talent and he's having to deal with a bench player causing problems.

Ok.......We'll just have to disagree on this......Some people compare Love's actions to Kobe or Lebron,.........but I have never heard anyone say that anyone's actions are ok because it is something the KLove would have done. Nobody would do that......even with Love being a top 5 talent.

If you think real hard, you can think of other "top talent" that are poor leaders.

I'll weigh in and agree that Love has thus far not proven to be a good leader. And while I'm fine with him calling out HJ and Dante, he should have handled it differently by first acknowledging that he let the team down with his performance in that game. But all this is really just a lot of noise or, at best, an interesting fan debate. More than anything it's a distraction from the real problems with this team -- problems we've discussed before on this Board -- I.e., (1) the lack of talent on this teams bench; (2) the lack of even one starting-caliber player who can break down defenders off the dribble and create his own shot; (3) the lack of a rim protector good enough to crack the rotation; and (4) the lack of any really good three-point shooters other than Martin and Love on a team that has an offense designed for three-point shooting.

So I just don't see Love's failings as a leader or internal dissension as significant issues. I don't even see Rick's shooting as a core problem even though it would certainly help if he could shoot. Heck, our front office knew (or should have known) they couldn't necessarily count on improved shooting from Ricky and they must have known or should have known this team's many other weaknesses. The problem is that Kahn left huge holes on this roster and Flip did nothing meaningful to fill them. So here we are -- a .500 team even though none of our starters had been out injured for any length of time.

This franchise has a serious management problem and any perceived player leadership problems are trivial in comparison.

lipoli390 wrote: problems we've discussed before on this Board -- I.e., (1) the lack of talent on this teams bench; .

Guys....our bench has been playing pretty well as of late.......you guys should go ahead and start accepting this reality now.

lipoli390 wrote:I'll weigh in and agree that Love has thus far not proven to be a good leader. And while I'm fine with him calling out HJ and Dante, he should have handled it differently by first acknowledging that he let the team down with his performance in that game. But all this is really just a lot of noise or, at best, an interesting fan debate. More than anything it's a distraction from the real problems with this team -- problems we've discussed before on this Board -- I.e., (1) the lack of talent on this teams bench; (2) the lack of even one starting-caliber player who can break down defenders off the dribble and create his own shot; (3) the lack of a rim protector good enough to crack the rotation; and (4) the lack of any really good three-point shooters other than Martin and Love on a team that has an offense designed for three-point shooting.

So I just don't see Love's failings as a leader or internal dissension as significant issues. I don't even see Rick's shooting as a core problem even though it would certainly help if he could shoot. Heck, our front office knew (or should have known) they couldn't necessarily count on improved shooting from Ricky and they must have known or should have known this team's many other weaknesses. The problem is that Kahn left huge holes on this roster and Flip did nothing meaningful to fill them. So here we are -- a .500 team even though none of our starters had been out injured for any length of time.

This franchise has a serious management problem and any perceived player leadership problems are trivial in comparison.

Nice post Lip, I think you pretty much captured it.