The reason why people are defending Love, as was said earlier in the thread, is because they are tired of other people reflexively criticizing him. It's a pretty simple cause-effect relationship.
Anytime we lose, Love will be criticized and someone will likely bring up Wiggins.
If Love puts up 19/14 (Knicks), 22/10 (Blazers), 20/11 (Nuggets) and so on and so forth it doesn't make any difference if we lose. There is a group of people who will rush to blame Love anytime we don't win. That's just how it is, and it annoys the heck out of a number of other posters.
So back and forth it goes. Another loss, cue up the Kevin Love thread and possibly the Revisiting The Trade thread.
God forbid if people are actually rational, and don't swing one way or the other, and just make note that Kevin doesn't look the same.
This guy was averaging 26 and 12 boards last year! We all know he's playing a diminished role, and that his production isn't going to be the same.
A night when Kyrie Irving and LeBron James are out, his 17 points seem very difficult to come by against a shitty team. No one really cares that we got beat, at least I don't. But how does anyone not watch that game, and ask what the hell is wrong with Kevin Love?
That's when anyone with eyes should pause, and say what is going on here? He is not right! This is a natural born scorer we're talking about.
It's not that he shot badly, it's not that he just had 17 points. It's more that overall he really seems to struggle to make his imprint on the game.
Kevin Love is not playing like an all-star, at all! He's playing like a guy that's heavily relied upon everyone else.
Something is clearly wrong with him.
I am not going to pretend for the record I've watched a lot of Kevin Love in his career, I really haven't.
I am going to pull a Barkley and say the hell with analytical stats for a second. Going on the eye test alone, and what I've seen from Love this year. I find in impossible that he's truly capable of putting up 26 and 12, like he did last year, from what I've seen of this year. No way, no how!
I've been watching basketball too long. I am not suggesting that Kevin is really not that good either. He's just a slug on the floor at the moment, granted he's not the fastest guy in the world to begin with, but he's playing the game at a slower pace. Everything to him seems like a struggle, the guy isn't moving fluid. I'd guess he's injured.
I mean, I know we've all been critical of Blatt. But it's not like the man is stupid enough to dial up 17 shots tonight for Delly, and ignore Kevin Love.
Kevin struggles to make himself assertive. If a shitty ass team like the T-Wolves knew how to get him involved, I wouldn't think it'd be brain surgery for us.
So that leaves the obvious, that's he's probably not healthy.
