Minnesota Sports Forum

http://grantland.com/the-triangle/the-question-of-kevin-love/

I'm sure there will be nitpicks here and there about it. But all in all, a pretty good piece that chronicles a bit of what every Wolves fan has thought about at some level for a couple seasons now...

It is a good article.

Let's just assume the NBA will rig the draft in the Lakers favor. Doesn't Wiggins plus some assets seem like a pretty good deal for the Wolves moving forward? I'm to the point where I don't believe the Lakers would do this deal since they would be better off to draft Wiggins outright. I think we are heading into the most fun offseason in a while in terms of speculation. I bet the only resolution will end up being us signing another stiff to our roster and calling it there. Although boring, this may not be so bad, we just ride it out with Love and wish him the best on his future plans.

thedoper wrote:It is a good article.

Let's just assume the NBA will rig the draft in the Lakers favor. Doesn't Wiggins plus some assets seem like a pretty good deal for the Wolves moving forward? I'm to the point where I don't believe the Lakers would do this deal since they would be better off to draft Wiggins outright. I think we are heading into the most fun offseason in a while in terms of speculation. I bet the only resolution will end up being us signing another stiff to our roster and calling it there. Although boring, this may not be so bad, we just ride it out with Love and wish him the best on his future plans.

You kind of answered your first part with the second part.

Why would LA give up much of anything when they are (by some accounts) the frontrunners and have plenty of cap space to sign Love outright after next season.

One season of battling for the 8th seed (maybe) then move forward with Wiggins/Parker/Embiid and Love and the ghost of Kobe...

AbeVigodaLive wrote:

thedoper wrote:It is a good article.

Let's just assume the NBA will rig the draft in the Lakers favor. Doesn't Wiggins plus some assets seem like a pretty good deal for the Wolves moving forward? I'm to the point where I don't believe the Lakers would do this deal since they would be better off to draft Wiggins outright. I think we are heading into the most fun offseason in a while in terms of speculation. I bet the only resolution will end up being us signing another stiff to our roster and calling it there. Although boring, this may not be so bad, we just ride it out with Love and wish him the best on his future plans.

You kind of answered your first part with the second part.

Why would LA give up much of anything when they are (by some accounts) the frontrunners and have plenty of cap space to sign Love outright after next season.

One season of battling for the 8th seed (maybe) then move forward with Wiggins/Parker/Embiid and Love and the ghost of Kobe...

Yeah the only reason I brought it up was Stein's article today saying the Lakers are trying to package their pick in a deal for Love. Flip has to make a miracle trade and coach hire this summer to keep Love. It is the only way.

"The Wolves are a sound defensive team overall, but they've been bad on that end in crunch time"

Thank you, Zach Lowe. When I tried making that argument on here a couple months ago, it was met with some hysteria.

I don't see the attraction to the lakers as a team unless Love is willing to wait for two to three years for them to rebuild. There is no guarantee that Kobe will be anywhere close to where he was, and that alone might discourage Love. Kobe would still be jacking up shots, and he will never relinquish the top spot willingly. Does Love want to roll with a new rookie, who may or may not work out. I think the Lakers will need to find a second star to bring in with Love.

I thought it was odd how Zach pointed out the last minute issues without suggesting how a more creative offensive scheme could have changed results dramatically. He even goes on to infer that Adelman's option is a problem, when now almost everyone else realizes that he is a big part of the problem.

I think he is spot on about our cap situation, and unlikeliness of being able to move the mid tier guys.

I found this comment funny "This has inspired some snickering from rivals". Seems to me these rivals should be more concerned why the wolves were the ones that traded for Love before he was a star. Maybe those guys should be more worried about keeping their jobs.

sjm34 wrote:I don't see the attraction to the lakers as a team unless Love is willing to wait for two to three years for them to rebuild. There is no guarantee that Kobe will be anywhere close to where he was, and that alone might discourage Love. Kobe would still be jacking up shots, and he will never relinquish the top spot willingly. Does Love want to roll with a new rookie, who may or may not work out. I think the Lakers will need to find a second star to bring in with Love.

I thought it was odd how Zach pointed out the last minute issues without suggesting how a more creative offensive scheme could have changed results dramatically. He even goes on to infer that Adelman's option is a problem, when now almost everyone else realizes that he is a big part of the problem.

I think he is spot on about our cap situation, and unlikeliness of being able to move the mid tier guys.

I found this comment funny "This has inspired some snickering from rivals". Seems to me these rivals should be more concerned why the wolves were the ones that traded for Love before he was a star. Maybe those guys should be more worried about keeping their jobs.

To be fair, how many of those rival GMs were in their position 6 years ago?

There's a different breed of GM surfacing around the league...

As for LA... Kobe Bryant will continue to be a better SG than any player in Wolves history. Add Love. And a marquee rookie (who may or not pan out, but still highly regarded by GMs and players alike)... and I can see the allure... along with everything else LA has to offer a young, multi-millionaire famous person.

AbeVigodaLive wrote:

sjm34 wrote:I don't see the attraction to the lakers as a team unless Love is willing to wait for two to three years for them to rebuild. There is no guarantee that Kobe will be anywhere close to where he was, and that alone might discourage Love. Kobe would still be jacking up shots, and he will never relinquish the top spot willingly. Does Love want to roll with a new rookie, who may or may not work out. I think the Lakers will need to find a second star to bring in with Love.

I thought it was odd how Zach pointed out the last minute issues without suggesting how a more creative offensive scheme could have changed results dramatically. He even goes on to infer that Adelman's option is a problem, when now almost everyone else realizes that he is a big part of the problem.

I think he is spot on about our cap situation, and unlikeliness of being able to move the mid tier guys.

I found this comment funny "This has inspired some snickering from rivals". Seems to me these rivals should be more concerned why the wolves were the ones that traded for Love before he was a star. Maybe those guys should be more worried about keeping their jobs.

To be fair, how many of those rival GMs were in their position 6 years ago?

There's a different breed of GM surfacing around the league...

As for LA... Kobe Bryant will continue to be a better SG than any player in Wolves history. Add Love. And a marquee rookie (who may or not pan out, but still highly regarded by GMs and players alike)... and I can see the allure... along with everything else LA has to offer a young, multi-millionaire famous person.

I can't agree that Kobe will be a great player in 2015-16, the first year that he and Love could play together. Kobe will be 38 years old, and that's a 38 year old with lots of miles on him and coming off injuries. That will be his 20th year in the league, and that's 20 years of long, hard minutes. His body has taken a beating, and he's going to find out what Garnett has learned at 37...a beat-up NBA body just can't do anything near what it used to. I have the greatest respect for what Bryant has done in his career, but I expect his stats to drop off drastically next year the way Garnett's have. Whoever expected KG would be averaging less than 7 points and assists this year? What won't change, though, is Kobe's need to be the man, and a broken-down 38-year-old just isn't going to be successful as "the man". I think Kevin Love is too smart to jump on the Lakers' sinking ship.

That said, I thought Lowe's article was very well presented, but it didn't make me feel very optimistic about Love staying here. The comments about Pek's offensive and defensive crunch time performance just further reinforce a point many of us have been making in other threads...we cannot afford to dedicate $12 million of our cap to Pek when it appears we have a more than adequate replacement ready to take over at starting center. I continue to see trading Pek for a 2-way wing as our best chance of getting to a level that could convince Love that he should stay.

AbeVigodaLive wrote:

sjm34 wrote:I don't see the attraction to the lakers as a team unless Love is willing to wait for two to three years for them to rebuild. There is no guarantee that Kobe will be anywhere close to where he was, and that alone might discourage Love. Kobe would still be jacking up shots, and he will never relinquish the top spot willingly. Does Love want to roll with a new rookie, who may or may not work out. I think the Lakers will need to find a second star to bring in with Love.

I thought it was odd how Zach pointed out the last minute issues without suggesting how a more creative offensive scheme could have changed results dramatically. He even goes on to infer that Adelman's option is a problem, when now almost everyone else realizes that he is a big part of the problem.

I think he is spot on about our cap situation, and unlikeliness of being able to move the mid tier guys.

I found this comment funny "This has inspired some snickering from rivals". Seems to me these rivals should be more concerned why the wolves were the ones that traded for Love before he was a star. Maybe those guys should be more worried about keeping their jobs.

To be fair, how many of those rival GMs were in their position 6 years ago?

There's a different breed of GM surfacing around the league...

As for LA... Kobe Bryant will continue to be a better SG than any player in Wolves history. Add Love. And a marquee rookie (who may or not pan out, but still highly regarded by GMs and players alike)... and I can see the allure... along with everything else LA has to offer a young, multi-millionaire famous person.

I thought about your "everything else LA has to offer" today as my lunch conversation was being interrupted by 20-30 paparazzi chasing Reese Witherspoon past my table...fricken' Reese Witherspoon...does anybody that lives anywhere normal even give a damn about her???? Then I thought about my day yesterday. A missed meeting because I was stuck in ridiculous traffic for over an hour on the 405. My tire slashed in a parking lot downtown in the afternoon. And then the topper...another earthquake last night as I'm trying to enjoy the Mich St. game. Second relatively big one in ten days...experts were making some dire predictions this morning about "the big one". Maybe Kevin sees LA differently than I do, but give me Minneapolis any day.

Gotta go...got an appointment with a realtor to look at some soon to be ocean-side property in Palm Springs...