Love not interested in staying longer in Minnesota

if the cavs win the title this year then i cant argue with the trade but they have to win this year or its a bad move imo

Without any serious injuries, the Cavs are doomed to make it to the ECF at least. Anything less should be considered as a failiure.
Imo Cleveland will come ro regrett trading Wiggins, as they're only an average defensive team with him on the roster. Without him they lack a second player to guard the wings after LBJ.

i actually think love is over rated but thats just me. i much rather have a strong defensive player but whatever. i still think with this trade anything shy of winning it all is a failure as they could of had love with wiggins next season

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Don't forget Boozer was a part of league top defensive team for years. Love was part of average defensive team last season. Peko isn't much at D, Rubio and Brewer were good defensively but they aren't anything LBJ special. With LBJ and Varejao, they'll be fine. Perhaps not among elites defensively but still in the thick of things. Don't forget defense is system first and individual ability second.



IMO anything less than 5th straight Finals would be a failure for LBJ now.

If it is the system, what happenedin Miami? Did coach spos schemes just turn...bad?

There was no system anymore, just individual ability.

The Heat were never a bad defensive team with LBJ.

You don't need all 5 great defenders to be a splendid defensive team. The Warriors can still get away defensively while playing David Lee heavy minutes and still finish 4th in the league defensively because they have Bogut and Iguodala. David Lee is only a loophole when he forgets to box out, loses his man, or sets himself out of the play entirely defensively.

Of course some players are Bargnani bad and consistently gets singled out to be attacked, but that's simply a bad basketball. ISO is the least efficient basketball play and most teams probably would welcome that. Love is a strong capable banger and can fill the lane while limiting opponent's number of possession by protecting the board efficiently. Ultimately there's only one ball to defend anyway.

You are overlooking Thompson's defense....


l will ephrase. Spos defensive system produced a top defensive unit then regresed out of the top ten this year and demolished in the finals.

I very much like to see blatts "scheme" play out. Who is james safety valve on the cav roster? As it stands, there is no battier there to let him rest on defense and its a waiters/Irving backcourt defensively (yeesh).

Can james sustain putting the defensive effort an entire game? Is varejao at the level of a top defensive big man?

You are perhaps right. There are reasons to be skeptical. I myself don't believe they can be a top 5 defensive team in the league. But I believe top 10 is within reasonable reach, top 15 for sure. The Cavs were 19th last season btw.

I just don't think Love's defense is as big of a deal as people make it out to be. You can get nearly all able body in the NBA to play defense but offense is where players get paid for. Love is top 5 offensive machine. So is LBJ. Get role players to play D and let stars do their thing.



Anyhoo, some interesting read... I will just quote things related to Kevin Love.
http://www.boxscoregeeks.com/articles/y ... ad-to-good

- Teams don't evaluate talent well. For instance, if you are the GM of the Minnesota Timberwolves going into the 2010/11 season with a ton of capspace, you could, after being terrible a few years, bring in a good player to join Kevin Love and start your way to contention, or you can blow $4 million a year on three different terrible players and just torpedo your team back into the land of suck for 4 more years. Of course, if "you" are "David Kahn", then the odds are that you really don't have the player evaluation skills to take option 1), so there you are. Might have maybe helped if you had hired a coach who was smart enough to recognize that Kevin Love was your best player.
- Teams often don't know when it is time to change gears and put the pedal to the medal. You get to keep rookies for about 7 years (4 on rookie deals, one restricted free agent deal). If one of your rookies happens to become the superstar you were hoping for, you better figure it out early and shift gears now.

The last two points illustrate why so many teams fail. Let's evaluate Minnesota as an example of what not to do. In Love's second year, all the signs were already there that they'd stumbled upon a superstar: best rebounder in the NBA (per minute), great ability to get to the line, 3 point-range. Randy Whitman forbade Love from taking 3s his first season after he started so poorly from beyond the arc, despite the fact that he showed range in college, or his 3-point range might have shown up earlier. They had, thanks to Kevin McHale's earlier trade, acquired just the type of franchise-level talent that only comes along in the draft once a year or so, and often less. Much of the nation had not yet caught on, because Love's minutes were limited, so his per-game numbers were small. But close followers (like me) had already recognized that he was Minnesota's franchise player in the 2010 offseason.

But the Timberwolves management failed to recognize Love's talent. Kurt Rambis spent the first 10 games of the 10/11 season inexplicably limiting his playing time (including zero minutes in the fourth quarter of a close opening-night loss), leading the Wolve's largets fan site, cannishoopus, to post an image that went viral:
[ Image ]
Imagine how the fortunes of those Timberwolves might have gone differently. Imagine an offseason where the management team says:

- Love is our best player, we should make sure we have a coach that gets him 35 minutes a night (Love took care of this himself; he pulled down 31 boards in the 10th game of the season, and the highlights were on SportsCenter for 2 days straight. This forced Rambis to either play him more minutes, or look like a fool in every post-game press conference from there on out).
- Love is our best player, we should find some guys that compliment him (instead, Kahn paid 2 midlevel deals for 2 big men in Pekovic and Milicic, and still tried to get David Lee after that). I like Pekovic a lot, but he's a horrible fit next to Love.
- Love is our best player, maybe we should move Al Jefferson to center (nobody in Minnesota wanted to do this, but for some reason Utah and Charlotte had no problems with this strategy). Maybe we don't have to trade him to Utah?
- Love is our best player, maybe we should lock him up for the maximum number of years? (Kahn refused and extended Love for 3 instead of 5 years. How he got out of Minnesota alive ahead of the pitchforks and torches after this inexcusable display of stubborn pride is beyond me).

By the time the front office found a coach who recognized the obvious (yes, this was obvious even then), the damage was done. Side note: looking through Minnesota's transaction history is truly depressing. They passed on Stephen Curry in favor of Johnny Flynn and Ricky Rubio (I love-love-love Rubio, but Stephen Curry is the better player today and was the recognized better pick at the time), they sold (not traded, SOLD) Ty Lawson and Chandler Parsons for cash. They ended up essentially just selling both the picks they got from the Al Jefferson deal. It's truly depressing.

At the end of the day, if you have a roster full of 21-year olds winning 30 games, you are looking at a potential championship contender in 2-3 years. It's probably time to shift into "win-now" mode. But if you have a roster with 2 rookies and a bunch of aging veterans winning 30 games, you've still got a lot of work to do.

Um...hey, you aren't paying any of those useless veterans $5-10 million a year for 4 years, are you? Ah. Well, good luck with that!

Team success is hugely why I believe there are people still undermining Love as a player.

Did Captain Obvious write that article? Their entire point can be summed up in two words - David Kahn.

but offense is where players get paid for.

1st team all defense members Noah and Ibaka make over $12mil annually

2nd team- iguodala 12mil, HIbbert 14mil

other defensive minded players-
Deandre Jordan 11mil
Bogut 12mil
Tyson Chandler 14mil
McGee 12mil
even a fluke year by Sanders landed him a 44+mil contract'
James Harden

Ibaka is much more than a defensive machine. Also check out Noah's ORtg.

Tyson Chandler's value was actually in his Wilt Chamberlain like efficiency in offense (though little in quantity). The Mavericks offense improved far more than their defense when he was on the floor.

DeAndre is also a similar story. These players get you around 10 ppg on 4/6 shooting. This is essential because you can have one of your guards to have a shit night and still compete. Cousins can put up big numbers but his numbers are merely avg among the NBA centers.

These players aren't just on the court because of their defense.

Defense is their meal ticket and they are paid handsomely for it

Grantland article points out Wiggins will have more opportunities in Minnesota so he should have better stars than playing the fourth wheel in Cleveland.

Minnesota will be like the kings in 99... Really fun to watch. Rubio spin move no-look behind the back alley oop pass to Wiggins who in mid air oops it to lavine

phpBB [video]

Love wearing #0 as #42 is already retired

I was looking forward to see Irving, James, Bennet, Wiggins, etc play together and grow in Lebron's presence. I'm sad to see that won't happen but the trade may be the best decision for immediate results. I'm still cheering for Wiggins and hope for the rise of the T-Wolves.

Makes me wonder if the Cavs still would have traded for Kevin Love if Embiid was healthy and was drafted instead of Wiggins.

Anyways, LBJ got what he wanted again. But LBJ and Cavs aren't done yet. It is said that they're optimistic to land Ray Allen. What fuckers. They are trying to buy the championship, not win it.

PG- Kyrie Irving / Dellavedova, Lucas
SG- Dion Waiters / Ray Allen(tba), Jones, Harris
SF- LeBron James / Marion, Miller
PF- Kevin Love / Tristan, Murphy, Powell, Edwards, Malcolm
C- Anderson Varejao / Haywood, Kirk
Likely 3 first off the bench players: Marion, Tristan, Ray Allen




If you were thinking Waiters is a loophole, you are absolutely right. He's arguably the worst defender in the league, infamously known for losing a spot up jump shooter. He's also extremely inefficient. League avg TS% is about 53% iirc but he shoots below in massive ball usage volume that he needs to be effective. To add to the problem he does little to nothing in everything else. That's why Ray Allen is a must for them. I'm hoping he screws them by re-signing with the Heat(very unlikely tho).

They are trying to buy the championship, not win it.

That's hilarious coming from a Heat fan.

I don't think loophole is really the word you're after, but he's the weak link in that lineup, no question.

They are trying to buy the championship, not win it.

it worked in the past for him so why not again?

god i miss the 80's and 90's

That's why Ray Allen is a must for them. I'm hoping he screws them by re-signing with the Heat(very unlikely tho).

Very very unlikely after his home was invaded by some young "the cool generation" folks.

I don't think loophole is really the word you're after, but he's the weak link in that lineup, no question.

I agree. 5th best player is always expandable even with depth anyway.


Depth at 2 guard positions is still questionable otherwise I just can't find a weakness in this roster. 65-70 wins if things go right and they actually play through the season where their #1 seed is guaranteed in the ruins of East.

Depth at 2 guard positions is still questionable otherwise I just can't find a weakness in this roster.

One glaring weakness is that they have no center once Varejao gets injured. Even with Varejao healthy, they're likely to get destroyed inside by the Bulls, if they can stay healthy. I wouldn't quite crown the Cavs conference champions yet.

Depth at 2 guard positions is still questionable otherwise I just can't find a weakness in this roster.

One glaring weakness is that they have no center once Varejao gets injured. Even with Varejao healthy, they're likely to get destroyed inside by the Bulls, if they can stay healthy. I wouldn't quite crown the Cavs conference champions yet.

I think you're right about it. The Cavs' frontcourt isn't that strong compared to the Bulls, Pacers or Grizzlies. Even the '76ers with a healthy Embiid could give the Cavs a lot of trouble.
Good news for the Cavs is that Miami had no center other than Joel Anthony and made it to the finals 4 times in a row...

Funny, because that not so strong Cavs frontcourt consists of the top PF in today's games.

Varejao/Love/Tristan big man rotation will do just fine unless injury hits them. Love's In & Out game is the best in league. Offensively you probably won't find a better frontcourt duo than LoveJao combo. Both are top of the class in rebounding as well.

As for defense, healthy Varejao will do just fine. He's the primary rotation big on defense. And presence of LBJ should help as well. Both got great awareness and covers a lot of ground. Love just needs to pick his defensive position smart, cover his man, and rebound.


Noah/Gasold/Gibson
Hibbert/West/Scola
Gasol/Randolph/Kuofos

Out of these three teams, the Bulls probably only comparable because of Noah's sheer excellence. Otherwise I like the Cavs frontcourt a LOT.

Yeah, as much as Varejao's health may be an issue, I'm not sure that the Bulls destroy a frontcourt of Kevin Love and LeBron James. If they remain healthy then the Bulls have a pretty good team themselves this year, but I don't think they're one Varejao away from being overwhelmingly better than the Cavs.

Once Varejao goes down they have absolutely nobody to defend the rim, Love and James don't change that. And when your rim protection hinges on a guy who hasn't played 70 games in a single season since 2009-10 and in the 4 seasons since has topped 31 games played exactly once, that's a significant problem to me.