Well, his defense may be bad, but when he pulls down 16 defensive boards, that's at least 16 shots the other team missed. So, somebody was D'ing up, even if he wasn't.
He is absolutely the best. I actually watch Timberwolves games, unfortunately. His teammates do not 'defer' to him -- that's silly. He's an elite rebounder, both offensively and defensively. He usually gets a lot of his points from rebound-putbacks on the offensive end. Dwight Howard's CAREER high rebounding average is one rebound below what Kevin Love is doing this year. And Dwight was playing more minutes when he was averaging that too. Dwight's CAREER high in rebounds is 26. That came four years ago. Kevin Love pulled down 31 boards this year. Rashard Lewis, the PF Dwight competes for rebounds with, is grabbing 4 a game. Darko Milic, the center Love competes with for rebounds, is averaging 6 a game. Love's SF/SG (WJohnson/Beasley) also outrebound Dwight's equivalent (Carter/QRich). It's not a case of Dwight's teammates grabbing boards and not deferring -- Love actually has better rebounding teammates. He's just THAT good. Kevin Love is the best rebounder the NBA has seen since Dennis Rodman. I'll keep saying it till it sticks. It is incredible what he's doing and he's only 22 years old.
Meh...he's only averaging 16 rebounds per 36 minutes. And considering he had 31 in one game alone makes that lose some luster. :grin:
That one monster games has inflated his rebound numbers, he is a great, but Dwight Howard is better, and he does it without sacrificing defense. Kevin Love only shoots 45% from the field for his career and he plays terrible defense. If he was a monster Minnesota would have shown some improvement in the W-L category, but they haven't. Nobody can make that team good, but you should have seen some extra wins if he was THAT good.
Love is the best rebounder in the NBA, no doubt about that. Even when you take away his 31 rebound game, he is still two boards a game better than Dwight. His rebound rate is higher. I agree he's the best rebounder since the Pogo Stick.
He's definitely a better rebounder than Dwight, he's the best in the game. But, that fg% is still atrocious for a big guy. If you take away his offensive boards and count those towards his made field goals his stats would probably look more realistic (probably not as spectacular). It would be nice to see him next to a big that can defend and still score in the post. Love just has those two gaping holes in his game that really hold him back from being a star player.
As I said -- he is an elite rebounder but not a go-to scorer and a below-average defender. I'd love to have him on my team, but I wouldn't be fooled into thinking he could be the best player on a championship team. I'm thinking he could be the 3rd fiddle on one. Regarding the 'inflating stats,' I'm not buying that. Love has a monster game every week and sometimes twice on Sundays. You're acting as if 31 rebounds was a huge anomaly -- it wasn't. Here are his rebounding totals for the last 5 games: 19 (CLE), 18 (SAS), 15 (DAL), 22 (GSW), 22 (SAS). He grabbed 24 boards two games before his 31 rebound outburst. He's legit. I responded to the Dwight comparison in a post earlier. Big Ben is a good one though -- right now Ben's career high average is .1 above Love's current season (15.4 v. 15.3). I expect Love to eclipse this by season's end as he's finally playing major minutes, but it's a good counter argument.
Why would you take away a game that he clearly got. Normally you would use this argument if say 5 games into the season he had a 31 rebound night and the rest of the games he was getting like 8 to 9 boards a game and instead of say 10 board average he was like at 13. Love routinely hits near 20 boards a game and we are 1/4 of the season into it at this point, and 14.6 or 15.3, umm, both of them are good for number one in the nba, by a wide margin. This is getting ridiculous, just admit that the man might know a little something about rebounding, stop hating on the guy.
If he develops better touch, he becomes the second coming of the round mound, scoring, boards and no defense.
BINGO!........................and Lee is actually more athletic than he is.The guy is good,but not a #1 on a championship team.....I dont see him dominating Garnett,Duncan,Dirk or even Scola anytime soon......IT IS WRITTEN.
I thought it was clear that I was responding to the poster who talked about that one game inflating his numbers. I was attempting to prove how ridiculous his comment was by showing how good his numbers would still be even if you did take away that one game.
