Kevin Garnett was definitely a Max player, but is Kevin Love? Cousin Sam says NO!
This morning my cousin Sam sent me a message concerning our beloved Minnesota Timberwolves. He lives out in Chicago but we send messages back and forth about the Wolves from time to time. Originally from Minnesota, Sam also endures adores the oh-so lovable T-pups. Below is a copy of the message he sent, along with my rebuttal to his assertion that we must trade Love now, because he will never be a ‘Max’ salary type player:
The last two games showed the difference between a max player and Kevin Love. 4th quarter against the Knicks, Carmelo scores something like the last 13 points to close out the Wolves. 4th quarter against Houston, Harden scores 17 points, including two drives that took the Rockets from down one to up three.
Love was nowhere to be found. Everyone has an off game, but I think this was reinforcement of the type of player Love is. He can’t create his own shot from the perimeter, and he can’t really do much in the post either. Harden and Carmelo were attacking the hoop, getting to the line etc. Love can’t do that. You also can’t pound the ball into Love in the post.
Also, Love seems to be falling in love with the 3 too much. 7 attempts yesterday. He seems to be floating around the 3 pt line a lot. Doesn’t appear to want to bang down low.
Bottom line…..trade Love now.
I’m not sure exactly when Sam entered the pessimistic black hole, in terms of his opinion on Kevin Love’s game, but hopefully it spits him out sooner than later. I genuinely believed that Love’s 30-30 game would change Sam’s mind and from that day forward he would adopt Love as one of his favorites. However, it looks like his qualms with Love have been resurrected, or maybe they never actually went away. Maybe he will never be a believer. I remember posing a question to Sam and his buddies two years ago – they were mostly Love apologists at the time – asking if it would take a 30-30 game for them to believe in K-Love. A few weeks later Love had me looking like the next big thing in sports fortune-telling. So, perhaps a 40-40 game is the only way.
Anyways, here is the message I sent back to Cousin Sam on Facebook:
You can’t convince a Love fanatic to trade Love, clearly he needs a healthy Ricky to get him more open looks. Ok, I think he has been off all season to be honest with you – whether it is his hand or his contract status or whatever else, he has just been different. The only thing that has bothered me is his hustle and his conditioning. I can live with him taking three pointers all day long, but I can’t justify his lack of hustle up and down the court.
And after further thought, I sent him this:
I also don’t think it is a wise decision to trade the best power forward in the game. Is he struggling? Absolutely! Does he lack the ability to create his own shot? At times, yes. But last year there were numerous games where he played the closer role and did it well, so I don’t think we can definitively conclude that he can’t do it. I will agree that he has trouble creating his own shot, but I have seen him do it before with his (1) step back three and (2) his mini-hook shot in the paint. So although he doesn’t create shots like a Carmelo or Harden, who I understand are ‘Max Players’, I wouldn’t say he is incapable of doing so. Furthermore, I must agree that he needs to refine his post-up game and start scoring 10 points per game in post-up iso’s. A big man needs to score in the paint and having Pek on the opposite block, to grab offensive rebounds, means that even Love’s misses from close-in may very well still result in buckets, seeing as how both players generate offensive rebounds at such an astounding rate.
The main issues with the Timberwolves right now are twofold:
1. Kevin Love has struggled, leaving us without a reliable alpha scorer. And, without a top dog to lead your team, to score the final bucket when you need one, it is pretty damn difficult to win close games – which teams must do on a nightly basis in the NBA.
2. We don’t have a legitimate shot blocker that can also chip in ten points and play 30-minutes a night. That means we have trouble stopping ‘Max’ type players in late game situations when their teams ISO them against Kirilenko (LeBron, Durant, Melo, Harden, etc.). When Andrei is defending these types of players, we have no weak side shot blocking presence to help him and ensure that we win that battle (we have seen evidence of this situation playing out the last two loses and throughout the season during bad third quarter runs). So, although Greg Stiemsma is a prolific shot blocker – according to John Hollinger he finished third in the NBA in blocked-shot rate at 4.44 per 40 minutes last season – he is simply not skilled enough to play more than 18 minutes a night, nor can he be relied upon in late game situations when the game is on the line.
Bottom line…..DON’T trade Love now. ‘Max’ player or not (he is making $13,668,750 this season just for the record) trading him would be as irresponsible as me driving home after a New Years Eve party in which I had more keg stands than meatballs (for some reason there are always a huge pot of meatballs at the NYE parties I attend). Instead, we should trade Derrick Williams for a shot blocking/rim rattling Larry Sanders-esque player, wait for Ricky to get his legs back, and continue to watch Alexey Shved develop a closer’s mentality. That’s the play with the cards we have.
There is no question Cousin Sam is correct in saying these last few games have shown that a ‘Max’ player wins the game when it’s on the line. But a ‘Max’ player also doesn’t shoot 35.5%, so lets all take a breath of fresh Minnesotan air (sorry Sam, not sure if the Chicago air will help) and let things play out a bit more before we make final judgments. Love needs the fans to stick with him and stay optimistic during this rough stretch, not belittle his talents and raise question of his skill set, contract, and mentality. Lately, I have seen and heard way too much criticism of Love and I’m sure Sam’s comments derived from Love’s ill-timed comments, his bad shooting performances, and the results of the last two games. At the end of the day, there is one thing I am damn sure of – this team is much better off with him than without him. So he stated his feelings of the organization and a lot of people didn’t like what they heard. That’s life! Everyone says things they later regret. And sure, they might mean them in the moment but that doesn’t mean minds cannot be changed. The sooner we all move on the quicker Love can snap out of this funk he’s been in and the sooner I can send Cousin Sam a message with the subject line: Kevin Love deserves the MAX!
The Daily Wolf 