Kevin Love - Miami Ground Machine

[PITCavsFan]

This whole thing is just silly to me. Love fills a huge gap for us and lets Lebron and Kyrie do their things by creating driving paths for us.

Hes averaging 17/10 as a THIRD option. Show me another third option in the league that is averaging 17/10. He's a positive locker-room guy and hes still young.

You plug any #1 into this team and ask them to be the third option and they are all going to take a statistical hit. We filled our major defensive gaps with trades. The team is on a 10 game winning streak. This team has the potential to easilly win 60 games next year as they continue to grow together and Blatt continues to expand his system.

This.

Love is worth the max just for what he opens up for Bron and KI. Then he puts up 18-10 on top of of. Come on. I'll take this guy on my team any day.

 

[Marcus]

Funny thing is, that is 18.5/13.5, not to far from his average. Yet when you look at it in context, on this team that is really good numbers.

But haters going to hate, no, with 2 20 point scorers on the team, he isn't averaging 26 anymore.

Love is having an off year as he and the teammates try and figure things out and he still almost made the all star game.

It's easy enough to point out how similar those numbers are to his season averages too, but take them in context. He's had a rough stretch recently, particularly the two games before this back to back. Good to see him break out of it with two strong games.

 

[Pioneer10]

It's easy enough to point out how similar those numbers are to his season averages too, but take them in context. He's had a rough stretch recently, particularly the two games before this back to back. Good to see him break out of it with two strong games.

And we wouldn't have won the OKC game without him: OKC is struggling a bit but with Durant they've been a tough team this year

 

[tn819]

At the end of the day, who do you want taking a 3 pointer down the stretch on the road on a western conference arena in the finals? This year and the next two...

Answer that question with Wiggins, and I just won't agree with you. We are building a possible title contender, not anything short of that and anyone who does not contribute to that or isn't ready for that has to get shipped out of town. The time for patience is over and was over. There was never another lebron and likely never another kyrie coming out that door

 

[Cavatt]

At the end of the day, who do you want taking a 3 pointer down the stretch on the road on a western conference arena in the finals? This year and the next two...

Answer that question with Wiggins, and I just won't agree with you. We are building a possible title contender, not anything short of that and anyone who does not contribute to that or isn't ready for that has to get shipped out of town. The time for patience is over and was over. There was never another lebron and likely never another kyrie coming out that door

Except Love is not clutch at all and we have years and years of evidence indicating it. I'll take the kid trying to hit that shot because he shoots a better percentage.

Kevin has missed those shots this year. It is an alarming preview of the playoffs.

 

[tn819]

Except Love is not clutch at all and we have years and years of evidence indicating it. I'll take the kid trying to hit that shot because he shoots a better percentage.

Kevin has missed those shots this year. It is an alarming preview of the playoffs.

"Love is not the problem here. He’s 12-of-27 in these situations, with a pile of monster makes — of 31 players who have attempted at least 25 such shots, only LeBron James, Damian Lillard, and Tyreke Evans have hit a higher percentage, per NBA.com. He draws double- and even triple-teams all over the floor in crunch time. The rest of the team is 12-of-49. Rubio is 1-of-5, and two of those attempts came in Minnesota’s first game of the season."

Source:
http://grantland.com/the-triangle/the-question-of-kevin-love/

Curious to hear your years and years of evidence. Pray tell...

 

[Rick Astley]

"Love is not the problem here. He’s 12-of-27 in these situations, with a pile of monster makes — of 31 players who have attempted at least 25 such shots, only LeBron James, Damian Lillard, and Tyreke Evans have hit a higher percentage, per NBA.com. He draws double- and even triple-teams all over the floor in crunch time. The rest of the team is 12-of-49. Rubio is 1-of-5, and two of those attempts came in Minnesota’s first game of the season."

Source:
http://grantland.com/the-triangle/the-question-of-kevin-love/

Curious to hear your years and years of evidence. Pray tell...

Is Wiggins in that list too?

 

[Gus Zing]

People forget Love is our THIRD scoring option. He's not going to score every night. It would just be nice to see him be a little more efficient because he has missed a lot of wide open opportunities. I would not be mad at him at all if he averaged somewhere in between 17/10 to 18/12 for the rest of the year and shot a higher percentage from the floor.

Its tough to say this with the current winning streak...

But would all be happy if Kyrie took a step back and became the 3rd option?

Instead of putting up 22/5. Put up 17/7

Those two assists turn into Love putting up 21/10

Everyone is happy then right?

I just want a championship. Dont care about pecking order.

 

[InBoobieWeTrust]

We have a very strong title window over the next 4-5 years. A very strong, elite window where we can compete with any team in the league.

Love maximizes that window. In the NBA, where anything can happen, that is a long window to be looking at. We have a great core in place set up to achieve an elite 5 years of basketball.

Sure, Wiggins may be entering his prime in 5-7 years while Love may be leaving it around that time, but I'd rather have a higher 5 year ceiling than a lower ceiling right now but higher 7 years down the road.

We have the best player on the planet at or at least right next to the peak of his powers in all facets of the game. This team is built to win, and trading Wiggins for Love was a big part of that.

 

[Cavatt]

"Love is not the problem here. He’s 12-of-27 in these situations, with a pile of monster makes — of 31 players who have attempted at least 25 such shots, only LeBron James, Damian Lillard, and Tyreke Evans have hit a higher percentage, per NBA.com. He draws double- and even triple-teams all over the floor in crunch time. The rest of the team is 12-of-49. Rubio is 1-of-5, and two of those attempts came in Minnesota’s first game of the season."

Source:
http://grantland.com/the-triangle/the-question-of-kevin-love/

Curious to hear your years and years of evidence. Pray tell...

I guess you would think that Minnesota would have won a lot of close games according to your 1 year evidence, but instead they underachieved wins according to their point differential and there is all the evidence that Love has historically had his worst scoring quarter as the 4th during his whole career. I'd love to look at the stats, but I'm so in Germany on my phone. Good luck

 

[MirORich]

Sorry to barge in here with this bit of positive Kevin Love news, but I was surprised to see this tweet from 2 nights ago and see that it was nowhere to be found in this thread:

Synergy Sports Tech‏@SynergySST
Kevin Love leads the NBA in Post Up scoring efficiency among players using over 4 possession per game at 1.005 points per possession

This team is doing great right now so no need to drastically change anything, but perhaps a few more looks to Love in the post after the 1st quarter wouldn't be such a bad thing.

Would love to get he official opposition party response to that from: @6kiss @clevelandrox23 @Birdy89 @qaws23

 

[blazenmp]

Nice, you just listed my ignore list.

 

[MirORich]

Looking at some of the shooting stats for love on Basketballreference.com

Basically, and we should all agree on this, regardless of what we think the causation with, the only one thing that Love is truly struggling with this year is his 3P shot.

His new role on a team with two other high usage superstars along with that 3P struggle is what is causing the illusion of a across the board struggle for some.

As the tweet from my first post indicated, Love is leading the league in Post Up efficiency for players using more than 4 possession a game. He's hitting 62% of his shots from 0-3 ft, which while not his career best, is still very good.
His percentage from 10-16 ft(.431) and from 16 feet out to the 3 pt line(51%) are both very good(better than LaMarcus Aldridges %s from the same distances) and help contribute to floor spacing.

However, he's getting 4-5 less shots per game than in any of the previous three years. By comparison, Kyrie is taking just one shot less per game than he did last year and LeBron is taking one shot more per game than he did vs the his last two years in Miami. That should be expected as ballhandlers control the ball and as we have two elite scoring ballhandlers on our team, Love just isn't going to get the same number of shots as he did in Minnesota. So it should be expected and is not a problem per se, but consideration should be given and its the reason that anyone who points to Loves points per game as dissapointing is insane. If he were shooting the same number of shots as Kyrie or LeBron(or as he did last year), he would be averaging about 22 and 10.

So the biggest problem is that he's currently stuggling(for his standards) with his 3P shot while taking the fewest shots of his career. But the percentage of 3P shots he takes is the highest of his career. Some of that could be his fault but some of it is how he's been used this year. So if you combine a lower overall shot total with a higher % than ever of 3P shots and a current 3P shot slump, its a given that his overall FG%(for now) will be lower than usual. Even as bad as he's slumping(for his standards) from 3P land, his TS% this year is currently still higher than LaMarcus Aldridge.

What we need to see from Love(and the team) are the following:
-Love needs to bust his 3P slump and revert back to an at least 35-36% from 3P land
-We need to up his FGA by 1-2 per game while keeping his % of shots that are 3 pointers the same or lower than it currently is
-We need to get him more post up opportunities

Just those minor tweaks, none of which should be disruptive to the team, would result in better scoring and impact from Love on the offensive end. The more looks he has in the post and the elbow also allows us to benefit from his excellent passing as a big man.

In any event, main point in this thread is that stats bear out that the ONLY area that Love is truly struggling in(by his standards) is his 3PT shot.

 

[Marcus]

Sorry to barge in here with this bit of positive Kevin Love news, but I was surprised to see this tweet from 2 nights ago and see that it was nowhere to be found in this thread:

Synergy Sports Tech‏@SynergySST
Kevin Love leads the NBA in Post Up scoring efficiency among players using over 4 possession per game at 1.005 points per possession

This team is doing great right now so no need to drastically change anything, but perhaps a few more looks to Love in the post after the 1st quarter wouldn't be such a bad thing.

Would love to get he official opposition party response to that from: @6kiss @clevelandrox23 @Birdy89 @qaws23

Don't do that, they get confused by stats.

 

[TwoPistols]

Not the best use of advanced stats here...it's foolish to think that Love is anywhere near the caliber player as Aldridge or more efficient/effective than him. Never in a million years could Love do what LA did to the Cavs down the stretch of that Blazers game.

Let's not sugarcoat it. Love is missing easy shots and he's not hitting threes. He's redeeming himself by getting to the free throw line. I really don't know how he is actually scoring 17 a game but it's a testament to his basketball IQ and natural scoring ability. The all-star break will be huge for him. He needs all the time he can get to work on getting shots up and getting healthy. The Cavs should be on some next-level type stuff if Love can moderately improve his 3pt%.