Is Kevin Love Overrated.

[kozlodoev]

3 -- Rubio, right now, was the worst case scenario everyone was throwing around before Rondo got back to the injury. The guy is still one of the most effortlessly amazing passers out there, but his team is crap (and that assessment includes Kevin Love). Rubio desperately needs to be surrounded by quality teammates in order for him to play well. Love might play better next to Rondo, but I suspect their relationship on the court will be relatively similar -- the difference is that Boston will most likely be able to field a much better team around them.

thank you Dos, for this assessment. Whenever Rubio gets brought up on this forum, he's described as a scrub or a bust, which in my opinion, is so off-base. While his scoring is highly inconsistent and still needs work, he's already a terrific passer and a clever thief. He won't likely ever elevate his team to new heights in the way a Jason Kidd would do, but i think he's a definite starter in this league. Plus, isn't he only in his 3rd year in the league? lots of time to improve.

When you're shooting below .370(!) for your career, you have a scoring issue that's just a tad more severe than "highly inconsistent". Especially if you're a guy that's expected to have the ball in his hands a lot in a game.

Bob Cousy is glad you escape his ire with his career .375. 

It is mind boggling a guard in the modern NBA is shooting like that.

Yes, there was Cousy. And Wilt couldn't really make his free throws very well. But then again, there was a lot of stuff you could get away with back in the day.

[D.o.s.]

With love imo is that we will become the next knicks (of the past 3 years). Just not good enough and wont have money left to get help.

I understand to many here that its better to take this chance  vs go through the rebuild route. But to me its not worth the risk. The ceiling of a knicks like team is limited to passing the 1st round

Btw ppl mention melo went to the conf finals once. Well that nuggets team was pretty stacked with billups a young nene etc. Plus anthony was not making max I dont think at that stage of his career

Amar'e's max contract is what's screwed the Knicks, not the play of Carmelo Anthony.

I don't think anyone on here has a serious problem with the idea of Kevin Love in green, I think we're all just arguing about an acceptable price.

[Mr Green]

Davis has the capability to be a complete two way player. Love does not.

That's the big difference, I don't believe there's a single GM in the league that would start from scratch with Love over Davis today.

Yes it's a no-brainer to pick Davis over Love at the moment simply because he's on a rookie contract.

But that's not the issue I raised. I was pointing out a distinct difference of opinion about them despite their similar circumstances of not having made the playoffs. Especially when Love's stats and win record are superior to Davis.

The difference there is sample size -- Davis just completed his second season in the league. LeBron missed the playoffs his first two years in the league, too.

Love's stats for his first two years, by the way, are anything but 'superior to Davis':
http://bkref.com/tiny/OKsjO

And, in his first two seasons in the league, Love and the Wolves went 39-125. Davis and the Pelicans have gone 61-103.

So your 'similar circumstance' is brutally superficial: by any comparable metric, keeping the comparison as even as possible, Davis is on track to be a much better player than Love -- rookie deal or not.

Well your 'similar circumstance' is brutally quixotic: it is not a comparable metric to compare 2009 apples with 2014 oranges. The only stats which matter are from 2013/14 because we're living in a what have you done for me lately world.

The bottom line is Love and Davis are young power forwards who have never made the playoffs. People currently criticize Love for currently averaging 26/12/4 and winning 40 games during 2013/14 while lauding Davis for currently averaging 20/9/1 while winning 34 games during 2013/14.

The bottom line is that Davis just finished up his 2nd year in the league, so it makes exactly zero sense to compare his accomplishments against Love's 6th year in the league. If you can't understand why... then I suppose I shouldn't be surprised that you're trying to make this false equivocation stick.

The expectations for a player in his second year and a player in his sixth are different. Once you can grok that, I'll be back to explain some more fundamental mysteries of the basketball universe, like 'Why The Pass Made Is Better Than The Shot Taken'

What happened in the 2009 season has no relevance to what will happen in the 2015 season. The expectations for what a player will do during 2015 are more soundly based on what they did in 2014. Once you grok that I can explain more fundamental mysteries of reality to you, like gravity.

[fitzhickey]

Davis has the capability to be a complete two way player. Love does not.

That's the big difference, I don't believe there's a single GM in the league that would start from scratch with Love over Davis today.

Yes it's a no-brainer to pick Davis over Love at the moment simply because he's on a rookie contract.

But that's not the issue I raised. I was pointing out a distinct difference of opinion about them despite their similar circumstances of not having made the playoffs. Especially when Love's stats and win record are superior to Davis.

And the fact that he is a defensive beast.

Maybe wait until Davis is 25 to make a judgement. Or compare Love's play from his first two years to Davis'.

[MBunge]

I don't think anyone on here has a serious problem with the idea of Kevin Love in green, I think we're all just arguing about an acceptable price.

At least a couple posters seem to have a problem.

Mike

[hwangjini_1]

I don't think anyone on here has a serious problem with the idea of Kevin Love in green, I think we're all just arguing about an acceptable price.

At least a couple posters seem to have a problem.

Mike

the problems alluded to above seem to be first, the cost of obtaining love. i could live with some of the scenarios for a  love trade that bounce around here. but the underlying point seems, to me at least, that it makes no sense to get love if the celtics deplete the team doing so.

next in the department of doubt is love's defense, or lack there of. defense is hard to gauge with stats in the nba, but i think part of the problem is that for love to rebound at such an insane rate he often positions himself for rebounds, not defense. meaning that he does not put full effort into playing defense on his man each and every time.

most distressing, to me, is that no player in the entire league gives up more points at the rim than kevin love. this is not a category you want your player to be #1 in.

next, his opponents take the 10th most FGA at the rim and by far they score at the best rate of players in that range. love essentially allows an average of more than 5 layups or dunks per game. FIVE. again, i think this is tied in part to his focus on rebounds instead of defense.

but in all honesty, under his current system perhaps he is not supposed to be a rim defender and this may account for SOME of those lay ups he lets' through. but that only explains a portion of a troubling facet of his game. but no matter how you look at it, love isn't a guy who does much to stop his man from scoring.

love clearly is an excellent player, a great scorer, and a very good rebounder, but does all that make up for his being a poor defender? or does his being a poor defender lower his overall value as a player to the point where he is not able to win enough games given his cost in salary and trade chips? crudely stated, does he give up so many points that the advantage of his scoring is significantly eroded?

another way to put this is if we put aside his gaudy stats of points and rebounds and look at plus/minus (one more flawed stat) last season love was at 4.6+ per game, which was about 31st in the league.

31st is good, but not elite. and the question is whether the price the celtics will have to pay for love is justified for a very good, but not elite over all player. is a very good player good enough for what the celtics will pay for and need in their pf?

do love's defensive flaws detract from his over all ability to carry a team to victory consistently?

EDIT: when i revisited the +/- ratings once more, i sorted by "per 36 minutes." when looked at that way, love comes in at around 67th in the league.

[MBunge]

do love's defensive flaws detract from his over all ability to carry a team to victory consistently?

Teams that lose over 50 games in a season really don't need to obsess about things like that.  They need to get better players and that means choosing from the players that are available.  Love is clearly one of, if not the, best player who is "gettable" for Boston.

I don't have a problem with those afraid of overpaying for Love.  I wouldn't give up Sully, Green and three #1s for him.  But this fantasy GM nonsense where people try to demonstrate their delicate genius that anything less than perfect is not worth doing drives me up the wall.  You don't pass on someone like Love because you don't think he's as good as another player YOU WILL NEVER BE ABLE TO GET or some draft pick who is as likely to be a bust as an all star.

Mike

[D.o.s.]

What happened in the 2009 season has no relevance to what will happen in the 2015 season. The expectations for what a player will do during 2015 are more soundly based on what they did in 2014. Once you grok that I can explain more fundamental mysteries of reality to you, like gravity.

The expectations for a player in his second year and a player in his sixth are different.

Consider that a cliffs notes.

[D.o.s.]

do love's defensive flaws detract from his over all ability to carry a team to victory consistently?

Teams that lose over 50 games in a season really don't need to obsess about things like that.  They need to get better players and that means choosing from the players that are available.  Love is clearly one of, if not the, best player who is "gettable" for Boston.

I don't have a problem with those afraid of overpaying for Love.  I wouldn't give up Sully, Green and three #1s for him.  But this fantasy GM nonsense where people try to demonstrate their delicate genius that anything less than perfect is not worth doing drives me up the wall.  You don't pass on someone like Love because you don't think he's as good as another player YOU WILL NEVER BE ABLE TO GET or some draft pick who is as likely to be a bust as an all star.

Mike

But I don't think anyone's saying that they wouldn't bring him to Boston for some combination of our assets.

That's different from saying 'I don't want him in Boston,' (and I don't) but that's just because I don't want to have to root for him.

[crimson_stallion]

Personally, I believe he is. 

Don't get me wrong I think Love is an excellent player and a bona-fide all star, I just don't think he is the "Superstar" player that he is being hyped as (and will be paid as).  I just don't believe he's done anything to earn that status at all.

First of all there are the weaknesses:

1) The injury history - he's missed some pretty significant time due to injury
2) The inconsistency - his stats have varied pretty dramatically from each season to the next
3) The defensive limitations - not only is he a bad defender, but he's also a lazy defender
4) The personality - lacks a winners mentality and has shown signs of being a quitter
5) The physical - lack of dominant size or athleticism

In my eyes, these four things combined hold Love back from being the great messiah people seem to rate him as. 

To put it simply, he just hasn't proven anything yet.  He's put up some big numbers on some fairly bad teams, but then so did guys like Gilbert Arenas, David Lee, Stephon Marbury, Steve Francis and Monta Ellis - yet what success did those guys ever bring to their teams?

At this point in time Love has yet to prove that he is "clutch" enough to be a #1 scoring option (the way guys like Melo, Ray and Pierce have), and he's yet to show any leadership ability either on or off the court (the way guys like KG have). 

I think he's an excellent scorer and an elite rebounder, but I think people just expect way too much from him.  I think a lot of people on this board beleive that acquiring Love will immediately transform the Celtics into a contender (or at the very least a good playoff team) but if you consider how much success he has brought to his past teams, combined with how much we'd need to give up in order to acquire him...I think people might get a rude shock when they see the result. 

We have a lot of young prospects on this team with good potential, we have a ton of draft picks over the next few seasons, and we have the potential to free a TON of cap space one or two seasons from now if we are patient.  I think we are better off picking up young talent in the draft, allowing that talent (along with our current young talent) to develop over the next season or two, then using our mass of cap space at that time to sign one or two star players via free agency.

If we trade for Love we will probably have to give up at least two of our solid young players (including any combination of Sully/Bradley/Green/Olynyk/#6 Pick), give up a number of future first round picks, and then on top of that would sacrifice a ton of cap flexibility by bringing in Love on a max $18m-$20m contract.

Love's contract would likely put us right up at the salary cap, and all the assets we'd have to give up in the trade would leave us with very limited assets to use in potential future trades to bring in another star...and love on his own is not good enough to take us to that next level.

That said I think he can be a very nice second or third star (like Bosh is in Miami) and would be happy to have him here IF we can secure a way to bring another star (a go-to scorer) and a defensive anchor (who isn't Omer Asik) to the team.

[Mr Green]

What happened in the 2009 season has no relevance to what will happen in the 2015 season. The expectations for what a player will do during 2015 are more soundly based on what they did in 2014. Once you grok that I can explain more fundamental mysteries of reality to you, like gravity.

The expectations for a player [with potential MVP ability] and a player [without potential MVP ability] are different.

Consider that a cliffs notes.

Fixed. Age ain't nothing but a number because what have you done for me lately oooh ooooh ooooh oooooooh yeah!

[Tr1boy]

I don't think anyone on here has a serious problem with the idea of Kevin Love in green, I think we're all just arguing about an acceptable price.

At least a couple posters seem to have a problem.

Mike

the problems alluded to above seem to be first, the cost of obtaining love. i could live with some of the scenarios for a  love trade that bounce around here. but the underlying point seems, to me at least, that it makes no sense to get love if the celtics deplete the team doing so.

next in the department of doubt is love's defense, or lack there of. defense is hard to gauge with stats in the nba, but i think part of the problem is that for love to rebound at such an insane rate he often positions himself for rebounds, not defense. meaning that he does not put full effort into playing defense on his man each and every time.

most distressing, to me, is that no player in the entire league gives up more points at the rim than kevin love. this is not a category you want your player to be #1 in.

next, his opponents take the 10th most FGA at the rim and by far they score at the best rate of players in that range. love essentially allows an average of more than 5 layups or dunks per game. FIVE. again, i think this is tied in part to his focus on rebounds instead of defense.

but in all honesty, under his current system perhaps he is not supposed to be a rim defender and this may account for SOME of those lay ups he lets' through. but that only explains a portion of a troubling facet of his game. but no matter how you look at it, love isn't a guy who does much to stop his man from scoring.

love clearly is an excellent player, a great scorer, and a very good rebounder, but does all that make up for his being a poor defender? or does his being a poor defender lower his overall value as a player to the point where he is not able to win enough games given his cost in salary and trade chips? crudely stated, does he give up so many points that the advantage of his scoring is significantly eroded?

another way to put this is if we put aside his gaudy stats of points and rebounds and look at plus/minus (one more flawed stat) last season love was at 4.6+ per game, which was about 31st in the league.

31st is good, but not elite. and the question is whether the price the celtics will have to pay for love is justified for a very good, but not elite over all player. is a very good player good enough for what the celtics will pay for and need in their pf?

do love's defensive flaws detract from his over all ability to carry a team to victory consistently?

EDIT: when i revisited the +/- ratings once more, i sorted by "per 36 minutes." when looked at that way, love comes in at around 67th in the league.

+1

[MBunge]

But I don't think anyone's saying that they wouldn't bring him to Boston for some combination of our assets.

At least a few ARE saying that, because they don't want to take on his salary.

Mike

[MBunge]

I think we are better off picking up young talent in the draft, allowing that talent (along with our current young talent) to develop over the next season or two, then using our mass of cap space at that time to sign one or two star players via free agency.

That said I think he can be a very nice second or third star (like Bosh is in Miami) and would be happy to have him here IF we can secure a way to bring another star (a go-to scorer) and a defensive anchor (who isn't Omer Asik) to the team.

1.  So, you think Ainge should have kept Jeff Green and never traded for Ray Allen?

2.  We can get Asik for the trade exception and little else and he's only signed for next season.  What possible argument is there against getting him?

Mike

[Mr Green]

I don't think anyone on here has a serious problem with the idea of Kevin Love in green, I think we're all just arguing about an acceptable price.

At least a couple posters seem to have a problem.

Mike

the problems alluded to above seem to be first, the cost of obtaining love. i could live with some of the scenarios for a  love trade that bounce around here. but the underlying point seems, to me at least, that it makes no sense to get love if the celtics deplete the team doing so.

next in the department of doubt is love's defense, or lack there of. defense is hard to gauge with stats in the nba, but i think part of the problem is that for love to rebound at such an insane rate he often positions himself for rebounds, not defense. meaning that he does not put full effort into playing defense on his man each and every time.

most distressing, to me, is that no player in the entire league gives up more points at the rim than kevin love. this is not a category you want your player to be #1 in.

next, his opponents take the 10th most FGA at the rim and by far they score at the best rate of players in that range. love essentially allows an average of more than 5 layups or dunks per game. FIVE. again, i think this is tied in part to his focus on rebounds instead of defense.

but in all honesty, under his current system perhaps he is not supposed to be a rim defender and this may account for SOME of those lay ups he lets' through. but that only explains a portion of a troubling facet of his game. but no matter how you look at it, love isn't a guy who does much to stop his man from scoring.

love clearly is an excellent player, a great scorer, and a very good rebounder, but does all that make up for his being a poor defender? or does his being a poor defender lower his overall value as a player to the point where he is not able to win enough games given his cost in salary and trade chips? crudely stated, does he give up so many points that the advantage of his scoring is significantly eroded?

another way to put this is if we put aside his gaudy stats of points and rebounds and look at plus/minus (one more flawed stat) last season love was at 4.6+ per game, which was about 31st in the league.

31st is good, but not elite. and the question is whether the price the celtics will have to pay for love is justified for a very good, but not elite over all player. is a very good player good enough for what the celtics will pay for and need in their pf?

do love's defensive flaws detract from his over all ability to carry a team to victory consistently?

EDIT: when i revisited the +/- ratings once more, i sorted by "per 36 minutes." when looked at that way, love comes in at around 67th in the league.

Very nice post, but I think it's a mistake to analyse defense separately from rebounding. It's also a mistake to say someone is a bad defender because they're too focused on rebounding. Blocking out and rebounding IS defense.
 
Rebounding is the second most important part of basketball. The most important thing is shooting because it wins games. But without the ball you can do nothing. It means the other team has missed a shot and you're not letting them have a second chance to score.

Chris Bosh's rebound and pass to Ray Allen in game 6 of last season's finals is a good example about the importance of rebounding to defense.

Kevin Love is a great shooter and elite rebounder. His rebounding ability should be a positive factor when considering his defensive ability.