Thank You Kevin Love

[Papalrep]

PS- Hey kev- I believe when you say you just want to win. If you just wanted a bigger market, like Melo, you would have played out this year like you did last year and then been unrestricted. New York, LA, Miami, all open to you. And we would never have had Wiigins, Thad, or anything. Sincerely, Thanks

[Phenom]

I'd like to thank Kevin for keeping his mouth shut and letting Flip do his job to maximize return value. He could have pulled a Dwight, who openly pushed hard for Brooklyn and was a huge distraction.

[Q12543 [enjin:6621299]]

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.

A few points of rebuttal:

1. Those deficiencies you describe for Love may not show up in the box score stats, but then you would expect them to show up in the On/Off numbers. But they don't. Our team did extremely well when Love was on the floor. It was when he sat on the bench that things fell to pieces, especially last season. This is a statistically proven fact and belies your claim that Love was a "stat padder", implying that he got his numbers at the expense of team success. Last season he almost single-handedly helped Corey Brewer have a career best season. Rubio had a career-best year in assists, largely because he had Kevin Love as a target. Pekovic was on a major roll, playing the best basketball of his career until he got hurt. Kevin Love was very much part of the success of these three players last season. We had one of the top three starting lineups in the league in terms of overall +/-.

2. You seem to under-value the guys KG played with in that 51-win season. Troy Hudson was actually still halfway decent then. Wally was better than any of our SFs from last season. Rasho was a decent Center. Joe Smith and Gary Trent were very solid. We didn't have JJ Barea sabotaging the second unit while being paired with a bunch of one-way players.

3. I considered Anthony Davis a Top 10 player last year, but he didn't lead his team to the playoffs. Or how about KG in his last three years with the Wolves? He didn't lead them to the playoffs in any of those three seasons. Of course teammates and coaching matters.

4. No one here would claim Love to be a transcendent talent on the same level as LeBron, Jordan, or even Durant. I'd even rank Chris Paul higher because he's a PG. He needs help. So did KG by the way.

Our lack of playoff success while Love was here was due to bumbling ownership and a front office that couldn't outdraft a monkey with a dartboard.

[Papalrep]

Q12543 - Our lack of playoff success while Love was here was due to bumbling ownership and a front office that couldn't outdraft a monkey with a dartboard

Elequent!

But for the record, I don't believe KLove belongs in the same conversation as KG

[Papalrep]

Eloquent - sorry

[Q12543 [enjin:6621299]]

Q12543 - Our lack of playoff success while Love was here was due to bumbling ownership and a front office that couldn't outdraft a monkey with a dartboard

Elequent!

But for the record, I don't believe KLove belongs in the same conversation as KG

"Elequent" - Said just like a monkey :)

Love and KG were two different players and personalities. Both were/are top PFs in their prime, but neither were/are capable of single-handedly making a playoff run without some pretty serious help.

[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.

A few points of rebuttal:

1. Those deficiencies you describe for Love may not show up in the box score stats, but then you would expect them to show up in the On/Off numbers. But they don't. Our team did extremely well when Love was on the floor. It was when he sat on the bench that things fell to pieces, especially last season. This is a statistically proven fact and belies your claim that Love was a "stat padder", implying that he got his numbers at the expense of team success. Last season he almost single-handedly helped Corey Brewer have a career best season. Rubio had a career-best year in assists, largely because he had Kevin Love as a target. Pekovic was on a major roll, playing the best basketball of his career until he got hurt. Kevin Love was very much part of the success of these three players last season. We had one of the top three starting lineups in the league in terms of overall +/-.

2. You seem to under-value the guys KG played with in that 51-win season. Troy Hudson was actually still halfway decent then. Wally was better than any of our SFs from last season. Rasho was a decent Center. Joe Smith and Gary Trent were very solid. We didn't have JJ Barea sabotaging the second unit while being paired with a bunch of one-way players.

3. I considered Anthony Davis a Top 10 player last year, but he didn't lead his team to the playoffs. Or how about KG in his last three years with the Wolves? He didn't lead them to the playoffs in any of those three seasons. Of course teammates and coaching matters.

4. No one here would claim Love to be a transcendent talent on the same level as LeBron, Jordan, or even Durant. I'd even rank Chris Paul higher because he's a PG. He needs help. So did KG by the way.

Our lack of playoff success while Love was here was due to bumbling ownership and a front office that couldn't outdraft a monkey with a dartboard.

Good discussion, q, but I know you'd lose all respect for me if I didn't re-rebut :) .

1) I can't dispute that Kevin had great on/off numbers, and that the second team that Adelman used had much to do with our losing record last year. But actually, Kevin's on/off net was not as good as Rubio's and only slightly better than Corey Brewer's. The Wolves' starting lineup had some fabulous first quarters (certainly the highlight of the year) that led to some great overall on/off numbers for our starters, and Kevin was an important component of those first quarters. But I wish I could see Love's +/- stats for just the 4th quarter, as I suspect they are not very good. You need your star to step up at crunch time, and Love has never stood up to other top ten players when the game was on the line. I hope one of our new high-ceiling guys turns out to be a real go-to guy.

2) I'll give you Wally being better than Brewer, but if you take defense into consideration, I would say the difference wasn't huge. But you have to give the edge to Love's supporting cast at the other three positions, and in some cases by a significant margin: Rubio>T-Hud, Martin>Gill and Pek>Rasho. And while the 2002-3 bench overall was better, the most played reserve by far (Anthony Peeler) had many fans pulling their hair out much of the time. Substitute KL for KG on that team, and I don't think anyone sees them winning over half their games.

3) You are correct that Anthony Davis has not gotten the NO to the playoffs in his first two years. But if he doesn't get to the playoffs in his first six years like Love, I'll shave my unibrow!

[Camden [enjin:6601484]]

Is it any surprise that we were at our best in the first and third quarters, but struggled heavily in the second and fourth quarters? Adelman and his sub methods drove me insane last year. 4th quarters were Love's weakness huh... Maybe if he (and the starting lineup) didn't have to work so hard in the third to regain the lead after the bench lost it time after time he'd have been more successful. I can only speculate on that, though.

[Lipoli390]

By almost every objective measure, Love is a great player and at least arguably the best PF in the NBA. And he will likely combine with LeBron and Kyrie for at least a couple championships. Is he on the same tier as past and present superstars like Jordan, Bird, Magic, Dr. J, Barkley, Jabbar, Shaq, Kobe or LeBron? No. I also place Love a notch below KG base on KG' total team impact. But he's an elite player and could end up in the Hall if Fame some day.

Yes, he wasn't a leader, wasn't particularly respected by his teammates and could be a whiny bitch at times. He was irresponsible doing whatever he did to break his hand and he failed to take responsibility for his conduct, instead concocting a ridiculous cover story about knuckle push-ups. Also, he could have been far less public in his desire to go elsewhere. But I'll give him credit for having his agent work with the Wolves in an effort to put a win-win deal together.

On balance, I'm in the camp that likes Kevin Love as a player and I appreciate what he did for this team while here. I'll be rooting for the Cavs because I like the idea of a team in a mid-market supposedly undesirable city doing well. I've also developed a lot of respect for LeBron based on the way he's conducted himself the past few years and the fact that he decided to return to his home town while still in his prime. And yes, I'll be pulling for Kevin Love - a unique talent who, in deciding to go to Cleveland, chose winning over glitz and celebrity.

[Phenom]

The real difference between KG and Love is that KG didn't quit on Minnesota even though the team didn't have much promise to improve. Love quit and wanted the easy path. I don't entirely blame Love though. He came up in a different generation of the league.