[BS Report] 03/09/15 - Kevin Love to Houston, Harden MVP

Why is the media doing this to us?

Just when things are going smoothly, and Dwight's recovery is going as planned, they drop this media bomb out of the blue which might sow unease in the mind of Dwight.

Sure, Dwight needs to face this maturely and not allow it to derail his focus, but I suspect the timing.

First, we don't know how good Dwight will be in the playoffs or a year from now. Still I'll hold off from trading him.

If we need to trade, we can't trade him for another PF. We need size and rim protection. (You know, I don't mind getting Asik back at the right price.) If the C can score, that's a bonus, but we have scoring from DMo and TJones already and hopefully Morey can get us a scoring, playmaking PG as well.

Smith is too inconsistent for me to hang on to him at the price that he will want. A rim protector will be able to approximate his contributions as well as that PG.

 

I am going to put this as nicely as I can....People who don't want Kevin Love are stupid.

Dwight Howard is unreliable and could very well end up being done as star level player. Adding Kevin Love extends our window beyond Howard's prime, which is the goal.

 

its like everyone forgot who dwight was cuz of this season. i'd rather have dwight over love any day. let dmo and jones work on their shooting and they can be the stretch 4s. u dont want dwight to over do it on defense at the end of his prime, thats what love would make him do.

look at dwight's numbers in his injury prone season - 16ppg, 11rpg, 1.4bpg, 57% from the field. anyone would want that on their team. maybe with jordan love would be a good fit cuz jordan still has a lot of years in his prime.

 

Defense. Kevin Love can't play it. Basketball is a two way street. Even an 80% Dwight Howard is still a defensive beast.

The NBA is literally SHOWING you how to win in the post-Stern era. It's not with superstars, with Big Threes. It's with depth and a balanced offensive attack. Who are they promoting now? Atlanta, Golden State, and last year's San Antonio. Whose backs are they trying to break? The teams that are trying to accumulate superstars like the Clippers, Cavs, and (unfortunately) us. Teams now are winning by keeping the same core together for multiple years, all the while building up the bench. We have to do the same.

 

To be fair, it's interesting how fast people around here give up on a player just because they're injured for a significant amount of time. If even a close to healthy Dwight plays, he's a huge difference maker and has the ability to affect the game on both ends.

Why are people who don't want Kevin love stupid. He's a jump shooting pf. And gives you nothing defensively as a big.

 

Am I missing something? Since when was 59% from the field last year, and heck, even 57.5% through injury inefficient? I know this is crazy, but 1st team All-Pro Joakim Noah is shooting 44%, Cousins is at 47%, and Gasol is shooting under 50%. Way to grade on a curve buddy. How many people in the League are averaging a 17/12/2? Nice job avoiding how Dwight is the best defender in the league when he is healthy, and cherry-pick his stats when he played injured.

What evidence do you have that says he won't be a star player? He has clearly shown that he can play at an elite level that is unmatched. He is the only player in the league that would be able to do a 26/13/3. Nobody can produce those numbers with his defensive presence. Nobody. Also, you do realize those were his best playoff numbers in his career right? Not too shabby for a person with "deteriorating athleticism". Did you even watch the beginning of the year for Dwight? Or are you just extrapolating his injury playing time as you did previously. It is clear you forgot about the return of "Old Dwight". Look it up. There were even Instagram videos where his head was at the rim again. Definitely not "rapidly deteriorating". The only recent thing for Dwight is a knee injury that has no structural damage. I didn't know it was a career ending injury to be out for a couple months.

I won't go in how ridiculous it is to think it is "lucky" to get 60%. Didn't know you had a M.D.; edema is not structural: it is reported to not be a structural issue. I had edema in my back: my back is fine. I got screwed when I got stress fractures. Independent events though.

I don't get your argument: playing fantastically in the playoffs is not star level? Aren't stars supposed to have fantastic games? He didn't spend 25-30 games on the bench last year. Seemed productive to me then, somehow holding the joke of a defense the Rockets put out there in the top 10 in efficiency for most of the previous year. It's like you assume Dwight purposely got injured this year. The Rockets are not doing a Tim Duncan strategy with Dwight. People get injured. Moving along...

News flash: Dwight is a legit 2nd option, and quite frankly, has proven his stripes as a 1a/1b option. You must have an extremely high standard for a "2nd option."

Yes, trading a max player on whim is the best way to recruit the next one! That will promise them job security! Let's not even get started about why we shouldn't trade him in the first place.
So the Rockets are the 4th best team (record wise) in the League without Howard. Yet adding a measly (cherry-picked) 17/12/2 DPOY won't give a legitimate contender, when our glaring weakness is an interior presence?

Really, because when has Love ever shown any ability to carry a team? When Lebron is out for the Cavs, they suck. In Minnesota, they sucked. Quite frankly, there has to be a lot of credit given to basically the whole Rockets roster for improving from their abilities last year to make up for the absence of Dwight. Why on earth would we trade Dwight for Love? Love has never proven that he can play winning basketball. Love is literally the definition of being absolute garbage at playing winning basketball, but pads stats. The Cavs are successful because of Lebron.

If anything, Dwight has been the most reliable player. He got injured! It happens. Was he not reliable before that? Didn't know getting injured one time meant you were not reliable. I guess Durant, Westbrook, etc. are not reliable?

 

Well, I'm stupid. No, thank you to Dwight for Love.

 

I wonder if Capela's play this year might influence Morey's thinking with a possible trade like this?

 

i usually like simmons but i thought his "why does houston have a persecution complex" comments were kinda dumb and disingenuous. umm, do you not read your own website? or deadspin? or any kind of media outlet?
although andrew sharp admitted last week that he started to find an underdog quality to this team he could get behind. that was pretty surprising.
also that comment sam amick made about curry was dumb. i tend to think people get over-sensitive about this kinda stuff, but having that elitist "calm down you petulant rockets fans" attitude only encourages a bigger chip.

 

People around here are a bit gun shy towards injuries, with the recent history and all.

 

Hasn't even scored an NBA bucket yet. Morey would be a fool if he is letting Capela's impressive D-League showings influence his dealings on an NBA level. Capela may be a very nice player down the line, I personally have him as a poor man's Ibaka but there's little to no way of quantifing D-League numbers to the NBA game.

It wasn't long ago that Royce White was dropping triple doubles in the D-League or Donte Green scored 40 points in a summer league game.

No way Morey even looks at a Howard for Love trade. Socially, it does not put out a good image for him or the Rockets since we have been going hard for Dwight since 2011. And from a basketball sense, Love has never shown an interest on defense Dwight at 50% is 5 times the defender Love is and probably will ever be.

 

This only makes sense if Dwight is going to keep pulling a DRose on us from now on.

 

Great post. Totally agree. I'd love to see Howard moved for a 12 point 8 rebound guy at center and an upgrade at point guard that can take pressure off of Harden.

 

KLove is the most underwhelming NBA star player I have ever seen. Great personal stats which for some reason does not translate into team victories.

By comparison, LMA is a true star and his play definitely helps his team win games.

 

Zach Lowe bugs me, I don't like him

 

Lowe is easily the best journalist in the NBA IMO

 

I would love to have Love on our team. Also Howards injuries concern me. However If we get Love we will have to trade on of our young PF for a rim protecting center.

The combination of Healthy Howard and Love is what you basically want.

Maybe the Jazz will trade Rudy Gobert for D-mo and picks??

Overall I do not see this happening, and I am not sure I want it to happen. I trust Morey will make the right choice (probably depending on how healthy we expect dwight to be, since I do not see Morey trading a healthy Howard)

 

If we could somehow retain Josh Smith, Terrence Jones and Dmo for our front court rotation then get Howard back to playing more Defense (over demanding his touches on offense) this team has a better chance at going deeper in the playoffs than if we get rid of a PF or two and sign Love at the 4 position. It's been stated multiple times that Love does not want to be known as a stretch 4 PF.

I assume he wants to take on a more Lamarcus Aldridge role where he can mainly get touches inside the paint while being able to take 3pt shots. Not the other way around, which is what we need if we were going to pair someone to Howard. I feel like we need a small miracle to keep Josh Smith, Jones + Dmo on the team (and also happy/motivated to play).

 

Don't know the exact numbers, but couldn't we trade Ariza + someone else, let the salary cap increase, and potentially be in the running for Love?

If we get Love, we gotta keep Howard. Their games complement each other too well. When we want to do H+H pick and roll, Love can spread the floor. Howard would make up for Love's defensive deficiencies, and those two would own the boards.

If Ariza + Kostas or Terry or someone like that is the cost, I think we have to seriously pursue this.

 

Trade Ariza? So who will defend the Lebrons and KDs of the NBA?

nah, we gotta keep Ariza, or else we'll be back to 2013-2014 levels.