Let the Lovefest Begin!
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Done deal… Wiggins, Bennett and Young traded for Love.
There are some interesting tidbits in the details of this deal. Other items involved in the trade:
Minnesota will also receive:
- An original copy of the Beatles White Album, signed by all 4 Beatles
- An original Volkswagen Type 2 Samba Bus
- 1-kilo of Killer “Kind” Bud
- 1 case of Gran Patrón Burdeos Tequila
Let the “Lovefest” begin!
I hate to be a party crasher… but…
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Yes…but will the Kombi include the original aftermarket gasoline driven heater? You know that in Minnesota you will need all the spare heat you can get…and I am not talking about Bosch and Wade.
I will guess the younger posters will have no idea of what we are talking about…
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Patron? Where do I sign up 4 the bar back gig?
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We sell Sthil Kombis for about $500. Big money for all accessories too…heater not included.
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For the price microbuses are going for today, it better!
Can you believe the prices of these today? They must have starred in a movie or something to get people interested in them.
Oh, right… here it is…
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@drgnslayr That’s one damn funny flick. Arkin & Carell are great in it.
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Wigs needs a new agent.
He starts out in Ontario.
He moves to Kansas.
He suits up a time or two in Cleveland.
Now he has to buy a thermal jock and play for the Twin Cities.
This kid deserves a better itinerary than what he has had so far.
KU was okay because it is going to Basketball Tibet for enlightenment.
But Ontario, Cleveland and Minneapolis?
Cut the kid some slack, basketball god, would you please?
Surely some super rich oligarch can tell Commissioner Nosferatu that our Andrew deserves to play for a franchise in Hawaii at long last.
Someone get Andrew to a place where the winters let him do his drive through banking in a convertible.
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I can’t believe how much Cleveland gave up to get Love. Come on even you fans that applaud teams trying to buy championships have to think 3 number ones is a bit much for Love? He doesn’t even play defense. Everybody keeps calling him a superstar, yet it’s funny the guy has never been to the playoffs. I understand a player can play for a sucky team, but superstars still make the playoffs. After all that’s why we call them superstars?
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I don’t think Love is a superstar. He is a star. The problem for Love is that, playing in the NBA, if you are a single star on a team, you probably aren’t going to the playoffs consistently. Look at some of the superstars that have missed the playoffs in the West over the years - Kobe and the Lakers missed the playoffs after Shaq left. Dirk missed the playoffs with the Mavs just a couple years ago. Carmelo and the Knicks missed the playoffs. Paul Pierce missed the playoffs several times (three straight years in his prime).
One guy can’t do it on his own in the NBA. There is just too much talent to overcome. Unless you are the best player on the planet (a Jordan, a Lebron, a Magic, a Bird, a Russell or a Chamberlain) you can’t drag a mediocre team to the playoffs. Even if you are the best player on the planet and you can drag a mediocre team to the playoffs, you aren’t winning once you get there without some help.
I don’t think Bennett is that good, honestly. He was a #1 pick, but I think his best case scenario is a solid interior scorer off the bench. The other #1 that Cleveland gave up is going to be a non-lottery selection, so it’s probably going to be a fringe rotation player type of pick. The only top notch player that Cleveland really gave up was Wiggins, unless you’re really high on Bennett or think that whoever is available at the 28th pick next year will be really good.
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My biggest problem with Love is his defense. It does take defense to win a title. If he could defend as well as he plays other areas of the game he would be a superstar. As you said… he is a star.
There is no doubt that Wiggins has a long way to go to be a big time NBA scorer. But he will make his efforts felt immediately with his defense. I like the fact that he’ll have to focus on his defense now to make his biggest impact. This is the way it should be. Players that are all offense tend to never become great on defense.
I think Love was valued for being a known entity… perhaps, that was given too much value. None of us know until time (and a lot of NBA action) goes by.
One thing is for sure… there are not many players in the NBA with the athleticism of Wiggins. It would have been interesting to see Wiggins side-by-side with James… two superior athletes with completely different builds. In my mind they would have created a kind of athletic synergy… pushing each other athletically and focused on converting their athleticism into points and stops.
But I do see Love and James doing a different version of that. I think they will be able to feed off each other… I just don’t see it happening on both sides of the ball… and that’s what it takes to win a title.
I am coming around to seeing Wiggins in Minnesota. The focus is on him, and we’ll see how quickly he can convert his offense to the NBA. I’m anticipating that he won’t meet fan expectations right away, but he has the support network around him that will keep him calm and working on improvement. It really can be a perfect scenario for him. He definitely has the right situation to help motivate him into being the best he can be. I just hope he doesn’t try to do too much too fast, where he risks injuries.
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There is no question that Love is one of the better players ion the League, even more so now that “stretch 4s” are in vogue. It would be interesting to project what his stats would have been had he played in a different team. I personally believe his stats are inflated, first because he was the go to guy in offense, and two because he a was always trying to pad his rebound even by jumping over his own team mates to get rebounds; he is a superior passer, particularly outlet passer, perhaps even the best currently…Wes Unseld is the best outlet passer of all-time.
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@justanotherfan There is a difference between missing the playoffs and not ever making the playoffs. Something Luck has never done. I know everybody is ready to crown the Cavs as champions, but lets hold on here for a second. Didn’t they crown the great LeBron and the Heat as champions last year? Yet they got handed one of the worst beat downs I’ve seen in quite some time. Maybe LeBron, Irving and the new Love go on to do great things, however I’m not so sure. For one Irving and Love don’t play great defense, not sure LeBron can change that. Two can Love be a team player and play second and sometimes 3rd fiddle when he’s not getting his points and rebounds? Lot of a questions there. So lets wait to anoint them champions before they play a game.
One thing is for sure the Cavs won’t be a dynasty as they pretty much traded away their future for a player that can’t play defense and has never played in a playoff or meaningful game (college included), but hey he can shoot the long ball and rebound.
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Only people in Cleveland old enough to be AARP members remember a championship. I do kind of hope Lebron and Love can deliver one to the city, although I’d rather they had done it with Wiggins.
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Lebron and the Heat were crowned. All they did in four years was go to the Finals four times and win the whole thing twice. That’s quite an accomplishment. No team had gone to four consecutive Finals since the Lakers from 1982-1985. Guess what? Those Lakers also went 2-2 in that stretch, beating Philly in 6, losing to Philly in 4, losing to Boston in 7 and beating Boston in 6. When you can match resumes with the Showtime Lakers, I’d say you’re doing okay as far as historical legacies are concerned.
Getting to the NBA Finals in four straight years is hard. Jordan never did it. Duncan never did it. Neither did Bird. The list of NBA greats to go to 4 consecutive finals looks like this - Magic, Kareem, Russell, Cousy. Havlicek. Oh, and Lebron and Dwyane Wade. That’s the whole list. EVER
So we are in pretty historic territory at this point. If Lebron returns to the Finals this year with the Cavs, that will give him five straight trips, which will shorten the list to just Russell, Cousy and Lebron.
Love will probably never be an elite defender, but given that there are very few true post up players in the NBA now, as long as he does a decent job scheme wise, he should be able to help the Cavs on that end. The fact that Lebron, Irving and Love represent three of the best 25 offensive players in the NBA means that they can play a defense first big man with Love and still not clog things up offensively since all three of Love, Irving and James can play away from the basket. I would say that Love’s presence should help a player like Anderson Varejao because the attention will be on Love rather than the less skilled offensive bigs for the Cavs.
A major thing lost in the discussion of this trade is that the Cavs core is still very young. Kevin Love turns 26 in two weeks. For a guy that doesn’t predicate his game on athleticism, he should age very nicely, meaning he will probably remain effective well into his 30’s. Kyrie Irving is 22. Dion Waiters is 22. Tristan Thompson is 23. Yes, they dealt Wiggins and Bennett, but the Cavs are still flush with young talent from all of the high draft picks they have had recently (Thompson, Waiters, Bennett, Wiggins and Irving were all top 5 draft picks).
Also, Kevin Love did go to the Final Four when he was at UCLA.
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Keep in mind that the '87-'88 team at UCLA that made it to the Final Four where it lost to Memphis was loaded with players liked Darren Collison, Russel Westbrooke, Luc Richard Mbah a Mopute, Joe Shipp, Nicola Dragovic among others. that team had 2 lottery picks, 3 first round picks, at least 5 players went on to play in the NBA and several other played professionally in the Euro Leagues.
In other words, Love has done well when he has a superior cast playing with him, but when he has had to lead the team, he has not accomplished much; no playoffs in 6 years and the best record the Wolves have had in that time is 40-42 and their overall record in that time is a miserable 153-323. Kevin Garnett was in a similar situation in Minnesota but he led his team to 8 playoff appearances in 12 years and his record with the Wolves is superior to Love’s.
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@justanotherfan dude if you think buying championships is the way to go, then by all means trade in your jerseys every few years to follow the money. Just don’t be upset when a star player leaves your team to get more money. That’s all they are is a hired gun, but maybe that’s what you want?
Me myself I would rather have a player drafted, watch them grow, over come the ups and down. It’s like I’m invested with that player. Alas as the money grows you will get what you want. The money teams will always play for championships and the rest will just be the minor leagues.
You say the Heat was quite the success. UM, I’m not so sure? If my memory serves me correctly that Heat team was supposed to be the best of all time. Didn’t even LeBron make some comment of 7 championships? Yet they did win two (got lucky on one), but they do have one of the worst beat downs in NBA finals history. Just saying.
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There’s a nice article over at Wages of Wins that does a pretty detailed analysis of Garnett vs. Love over the early part of their career. It basically determines that Love has been more productive with worse teammates than Garnett had in his early years.
As a second year player, Garnett was teamed with Tom Gugliotta (a solid veteran) and Stephon Marbury. He also had Sam Mitchell and Terry Porter (productive veterans) on those early teams. When Marbury was traded a few years later, they brought back Terrell Brandon, who played an all star caliber PG for a few years for them. Malik Sealy and Wally Szczerbiak (another all star caliber player for a couple years) teamed with him as well. This all before he was 25.
The best teammate Love ever had was Al Jefferson, and the two of them never played a full season together because of injuries. Kevin Love has not played with a single other all star caliber teammate.
The situations were not even close to similar. You can’t compare Rubio to Marbury or Brandon because Rubio is the worst shooting PG in basketball, not just for last season, but on a historical basis. There’s no Gugliotta equivalent. No veterans like Sealy, Porter or Sam Mitchell. No draft picks that became like Szczerbiak. Just two lost seasons with Al Jefferson or Kevin Love injured for portions of them. That’s it.
I disagree with your guess that the “money teams” will always play for titles. This isn’t baseball. There’s a salary cap in the NBA that actually evens the playing field, provided that teams are smart with how they spend their money. Take Minnesota for example. They have had Kevin Love this entire time, and yet they have used lottery picks on the following players since drafting Love:
Ricky Rubio (worst shooting PG in NBA history)
Johnny Flynn (Out of the NBA)
Wesley Johnson (yet to average even double figures in his career)
Derrick Williams (had one season averaging 12 ppg, other than that, has averaged less than 9).
Trey Burke (traded for Shabazz Muhammed, who averaged 4 points a game in 37 games last year).
That’s the lottery picks they used. They had Ty Lawson, but traded him to Denver on draft day so they could keep Rubio and Flynn. I don’t have to tell you how that worked out.
Simply put, Minnesota’s front office did a terrible job surrounding Love with talent, in much the same way that Cleveland’s previous front office did a poor job of surrounding Lebron with talent. I think now players in the NBA realize that if they are stuck on a team with a bad front office, they are better off either 1) taking it upon themselves to bring in good players or 2) moving on.
Whether Minnesota has learned anything will become more obvious over the next couple of years as they try to build around Wiggins and Bennett. They got a good haul in this trade. Not enough to win a title, but a good start. But are they smart enough to build on the foundation or not?
As for me, I’m a Pistons fan from the Bad Boys days, so I know how the whole trade thing works. Those Pistons were built through the draft and trades
Isiah Thomas, Joe Dumars, Dennis Rodman and John Salley were drafted by the Pistons. Bill Laimbeer (Cleveland), Rick Mahorn (Washington), Vinnie Johnson (Seattle), James Edwards (Phoenix) and Mark Aguirre (Dallas) were all acquired via trade.
Why did the Pistons have to make so many trades? Well, by Isiah Thomas’ third year, they were a playoff team, but nowhere close to being good enough to take down the Celtics, but not picking high enough to get impact players entering the league like Malone, Jordan, Olajuwon, Barkley and Ewing. So they traded for guys to fill out their roster and hung two banners - my two favorite teams of all time.
