Kevin Love Being compared to Bird around the league..

[slamtheking]

Question is, will Love rot his career away on stinky Wolves teams a la KG or will he soon find his way to a real team..

He's leaving.  When the T-Wolves excercised their option, Love's brother tweeted something like "Congrats to the Wolves for renting Kevin for another few years"

He wants to follow in KG's footsteps all the way to Boston 

[xmuscularghandix]

It's similar to the Dirk comparison.

Bird had passing, shooting, rebounding,

Dirk has the shooting.

Love has the shooting and the rebounding.

neither have the total package, but I think Love deserves the comparison with outside shot AND inside toughness/rebounds.

Larry Bird was LITERALLY if you took Rondo's passing, Ray Allen's shooting, Paul Pierce's shot creativity, and KG's rebounding... Larry was the C's current Big 4 by himself.

[pearljammer10]

this is absurdity at its finest

[dark_lord]

bad comparison.  let's be honest, the only reason for the comparison is bc they are white, which annoys me.  compare a player's game to another player's game, not involving ethnicity.

[Fafnir]

Larry Bird was LITERALLY if you took Rondo's passing, Ray Allen's shooting, Paul Pierce's shot creativity, and KG's rebounding... Larry was the C's current Big 4 by himself.

Eh, Larry was certainly the best player of the four and had aspects of all their games rolled into one package. But KG is a better rebounder (career wise) and Ray Allen the better "shooter" (career wise).

[GreenFaith1819]

I love Kevin's play, but please let the man get at LEAST ONE 2nd Team All-NBA Defensive Team award before the league starts comaparing him to Larry.

As great a player as Larry already was, he had THREE of those.

I think Scotty was perhaps the best defensive SF ever, but I found it impressive that Larry was recognized in this category, as well.

[Celts Fan 92]

I knew that comparison would get people here hot as a fire cracker lls. As a dude who's 19 nd neva seen Bird play lookin at the stats I find it ridiculous, but lets not bash Kevin Love cuz he didnt ask for dat he's just puttin up monster numbers dat the league hasnt seen for a while

[xmuscularghandix]

Larry Bird was LITERALLY if you took Rondo's passing, Ray Allen's shooting, Paul Pierce's shot creativity, and KG's rebounding... Larry was the C's current Big 4 by himself.

Eh, Larry was certainly the best player of the four and had aspects of all their games rolled into one package. But KG is a better rebounder (career wise) and Ray Allen the better "shooter" (career wise).

I don't care about numbers, i care about results when it matters. Larry Bird doesn't go 0-13 from the field in an NBA finals game, he also doesn't get 3 rebounds in Game 7 of the NBA Finals.

Also imagine how great a rebounder Larry would be if he didn't share a career with Robert Parish and Kevin McHale alongside him...

I stick to my statement.

[D Dub]

bad comparison.  let's be honest, the only reason for the comparison is bc they are white, which annoys me.  compare a player's game to another player's game, not involving ethnicity.

Normaly I would agree (no one ever seems to compare black players to Bird...), but looking back it is hard to find another F who put up 30/20 games. 

Being a natural rebounder, while still hitting 3's at an elite rate is rare for an NBA player.

[Moranis]

It's similar to the Dirk comparison.

Bird had passing, shooting, rebounding,

Dirk has the shooting.

Love has the shooting and the rebounding.

neither have the total package, but I think Love deserves the comparison with outside shot AND inside toughness/rebounds.

Larry Bird was LITERALLY if you took Rondo's passing, Ray Allen's shooting, Paul Pierce's shot creativity, and KG's rebounding... Larry was the C's current Big 4 by himself.

But that was Bird over his entire career, not Bird in any particular year.  For example, his rookie year he shot 40% from three, but the next four seasons he was below 30% from three.  His RB% got worse pretty much every year in the league from his high as a rookie (16) to his low in his second to last season (12.3).  Bird was a good passer as a rookie, but he didn't really become all time great SF passer until he was in the league for 5 or 6 years. 

Love has a higher PER in year 2, year 3, and year 4 than Bird had in year 2, year 3, and year 4 (I know PER is flawed, but the stats we are looking at, are pretty much encapsulated by PER).  Now Love is no where near the defender Bird was, though if Love had Parish, McHale, Maxwell, etc. playing with him, then perhaps his defense wouldn't look quite as bad. 

Love is obviously not as good as Bird, but his game is pretty darn similar (great rebounder, excellent shooter, solid all around scorer, similar size, etc.)

[GreenFaith1819]

A bit odd that Kevin is being compared to Larry in that Kevin is a PF.

Larry was a SF. I know he did play some PF, but he spent the majority of his time at SF.

Already, Kevin is making quite a name for himself, though. I thought Minny would fold after Ricky went down, but KLove still has them competing.

Their starting center, Pekovic, has missed some time, too.

Hats off to the man. I wonder how good Kevin will get once he has some more players around him.

Wow.

Imagine IF he somehow got to BOS next season - KG at C, KLove at PF.....I know it's not happening, but still.

I think the comparisons to Larry are natural, though. Nothing wrong with that. I miss Larry tearing up the league, too...kicking butt and taking names.

This is Kevin's time to shine. Just do your thing, Lumberjack!

[CelticSooner]

Looks like forums reverted to a previous version, you'll notice that the Wizards game thread is also short a lot of pages and posts.

That's a shame.

bad comparison.  let's be honest, the only reason for the comparison is bc they are white, which annoys me.  compare a player's game to another player's game, not involving ethnicity.

Race has something to do with it obviously because your comparing him to one of the greatest white players ever. Love does have a similar game to Bird though. He's a good shooter, great rebounder, excellent passer, and clutch to go with it.

The only thing he doesn't have on Bird is defense. Love will probably never be as good Bird but I see no harm in the comparisons. Love is one hell of a player. If he played in a bigger market he would be more looked upon as well.

[GreenFaith1819]

I just think Lary transcended race, eventually.

He was THAT good.

The way he blistered folks, you just didn't see him as white, IMO.

I'll never forget one of my favorite Spike Lee movies - "She's gotta have it." That memorable conversation that Spike had on the basketball court with Tommy Hicks about Bernard King torching BOS back in the 80's, and Tommy countered - "Man, King was good, but Larry is the BEST PLAYER IN THE NBA."

I just don't think we'll ever see another Larry. Some of these players are just like that.

We'll never see another:

Magic. Michael. KG. Larry. McHale. Olajuwon, Duncan. Charles. Shaq. Kareem. Wilt. Russell. Those players were just so unique to me, in how they dominated the game.

Yep. I added KG. Just the way Larry elevated his team, KG did that to Minny AND BOS, except his effect was on the defensive end.

[LooseCannon]

Looks like my analysis got deleted, but the basic point was that the players who had seasons that most resemble what Love is doing were Dirk Nowitzki and Troy Murphy.  Nowitzki had better blocks/steals, Murphy had worse scoring, and both were significantly worse at rebounding.

[greenpride32]

OP - Around the league?  What league?  This is the first I've heard of the comparison.  No it's not being talked about.

/THREAD