The thing is, Kevin Love's Timberwolves last season were ranked #12 in defensive points per possession and the Wolves allowed the same number of points per possession with Love on the court and off the court. And this happened on a team without much rim protection and with only one player (Rubio) known as a plus defender. So, while Love may not be a great defender, it is certainly not impossible to see him do his part on a very good defensive team as long as he is on a team with teammates who are committed to and good at playing defense. This leads me to think whatever issues he has with the Cavs is more of a question of environment than of Kevin Love specifically. We've seen plenty of talented guy being much less helpful than they should be when surrounded by the wrong teammates and coaches. Pau Gasol, for one, was much less useful as a Laker last season than he is as a Bull now.
Average will be good enough next to Ariza, Howard and Smith, but I think he can be better. DMo's strength is being in the right place at the right time. That's a combination of size, footwork and BBIQ. Love has roughly equal size to DMo (standing reach), has shown good footwork in other parts of his game, and is most known for his smarts. I'm not saying he will be equal to DMo as a defender....just that he can be better than he has shown, and better than average overall. Put him in Houston, and he will thrive.
Yeah, but now getting stuck, I mean trading for Kevin Love looks remarkably like trading for Deron Williams.
So? Love's also been on Team USA how come he didn't "turn it around"? At some point you have to hold the guy accountable, Love CHOOSES not to play defense. I mean, it's awesome if he turns it around in Houston but why bother trading for the guy when DMO is already a better defender and a good scorer for like 1/10 of the price? 2nd tier stars like Love are rare, but if you have capspace they will come. But extremely productive rookies on rookie scale are even rarer, you can only get them if you luck out in the draft and they allow you to field incredibly deep teams because they cost less than a vet to keep around. Cavs are dumb so they made the terrible mistake of trading Wiggins for Love, now you want the Rox to do the same thing? LOL!
I'm not saying it's not in some ways Love's fault, but you need to look at it in context. He has never been on a great defensive team. How is trading DMo for Love anywhere in the same universe as trading Wiggins for Love? Wiggins has superstar written all over him. Similar to Lebron, we were talking about him years before he got to the NBA. DMo is a very good player. He CAN be a starter on a championship team. He is also, unfortunately, not the best fit for our team. We want to run and open up the floor in the halfcourt for Dwight and Harden to wreck havoc. DMo can't do that for us, and you probably won't notice it until we get to the playoffs. Teams will put 3 guys in the paint and force Ariza and Beverley to beat them with 3s. To quote another poster, "The best time to trade a player is when everyone thinks you would be crazy to do it." Likewise, the best time to trade for a player is when everyone else thinks you'd crazy to do it. Buy low........sell high.
Misleading thread title. LeBron pushed him onto to the bench. He was just "protecting" him from Markieff Morris.
DMo's wingspan may be small relative to his size, but he's plenty long in absolute terms. Even if his wingspan conservatively matches his height (7ft) it's longer than Love's. Yao's wingspan is only 7'5", but no one would say he has short reach. Again, I don't think this matters much at all. Chicago was able to hide Boozer on defense, are hiding an aged Gasol defensively now, and I think we can do the same for Love and win a championship. People are down on him right now because Cleveland is dysfunctional. People were clamoring for him last year.
People now say that the Cavs should have kept Wiggins, but if Wiggins were on the Cavs I doubt that he would average more than 15 minutes a night given how raw he was at the beginning of the year and in fact still is. The only reason Wiggins is putting up some nice numbers is because he's on an awful Wolves team that can afford to play all their inexperienced rookies major minutes.
Not the same at all. Love isn't having *that bad* of a year. He's shooting 44% from the field and 34% from 3. Those are close to (if a little below) his career averages. One noticeable change is that he's getting to the line much less this year. He averaged 8 attempts a game from 2011 to 2014, which would put him in the top 5 this year. He's *only* getting 5 attempts this year, which is still good for #21 overall. For reference, Harden averages 8.8 attempts (#2 overall) and Howard averages 7.3 (#7 overall). I imagine the decline has everything to do with him playing off ball more. He's simply the best possible fit for this team. He shoots the 3, gets to the line, can post up, throws a great outlet pass, etc. He excels at everything we emphasize on offense. He needs work on defense, but let's not forget the one thing he does exceptionally well on that end.....rebounding. He is an ELITE defensive rebounder (most in the NBA last year). That's important when you've got Howard and Smith going for the block.
Love is much better as a player than what he is showing right now. It might be easier if one of the 3 decides to come off the bench.
I know one thing, I'd get rid of Kyrie's sorry ass before I'd trade Kevin Love. Anyway, the cavs are going to mess around and lose Kevin Love AND Lebron if they don't get their **** together. Kevin Love reminds me of Lionel Hollins in the sense that people think they can disrespect him to no end. Cavs are doing it to themselves this time.
The difference btw kyrie and love is that kyrie can fix his issue love can not. Kyrie before this season was known as a horrible defender just like harden, but it wasn't that he couldn't it was about the WANT and putting energy into it. Love can try as hard as he wants he will NEVER be a good defender due to his size, length and athletic ability.
Rebounding is an important part of defense. Outlet passing is important part of offense. Love isn't an all around plus defender, who the hell gives a rat's ass. Love brings two things that EVERY TEAM needs. Low Post Scoring and Rebounding. Kyrie does nothing but make silly commercials. Kyrie is terrible.
