The Kevin Love Safari™

Re: The Kevin Love Safari™

csb669 said:

Not to mention Lebron has grown quite a bit as a player since the previous go-round.

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It's tough....that 66 win team...I thought that was our year. I mean Mo Williams was an all star for chrissakes...Little did we know he would turn into Mo "No Show" Williams in the playoffs.

With Irving and Waiters, that doesn't happen. They're skill sets are much better. The playoffs is the type of environment both would thrive in. The playoffs are a different breed. Requires complete concentration and you must possess more than one skill set. Mo's was shooting, nothing else and when your shooting percentage goes down, you turn into a black hole.

Throw Love into the mix and that is a team almost tailor-made for the playoffs, from an offensive standpoint. We are still in desperate need of some D if Wiggins is gone but i still think that can be addressed even with adding Love in the off-season.

Walter White said:

If we end up in a 3 way with the 76ers and Wiggins is involved, it would be nice to end up with McDaniels or Grant. Or send one of them to Minny (with Young) in place of Wiggins?

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How does that sell tickets in Minnesota?

I understand what is going on. The business side of the game, making money, has been ignored by most Cavaliers fans because Dan Gilbert has been willing to take a financial hit to rebuild and lose money short term. Taylor isn't in that position. It is obvious that they won't have the same optimism going into this year without Kevin Love, but they want to stop the bleeding. As Cavaliers fans who just gutted through four years of losing basketball, we are quick to tell them, "Life's a bitch sometimes, ain't it? Now give us your All Pro losers." Well, they need to play this thing out.

**I guess it's time for me to say, IMHO, Wiggins will be included. I've thought that for over a week. Minnesota overvalues him too much.

Randolphkeys said:

**I guess it's time for me to say, IMHO, Wiggins will be included. I've thought that for over a week. Minnesota overvalues him too much.

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Yeah, I accepted that a week or a week and a half ago as well. It sucks, but Love is a ridiculously good basketball player and Wiggins is still a question mark. Hopefully we can pry something else from Minny in exchange for caving on Wiggins.

At least we'll still have Ball Hard.

eljtsa said:

IMO, they are simply posturing, waiting, and hoping they can get the Cavs (or James) to cave and do what they want to get this deal done, and also hoping maybe another team will be enticed to jump in to the mix and help their leverage.

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Lebron isn't the guy making the moves, so he won't cave. He suggested to management that he wants to play with Kevin Love. That's his role. The Lebron pulling the strings behind the scenes thing is a ridiculous invention of the talking heads covering this story.

The Bullshit Whisperer on 9.23 right now, says his gut tells him the deal is done and wiggins is gone and that both teams are "on vacation" while they wait the 30 days. He also says there is no way we trade both Waiters and Wiggins

Jack Brickman said:

Yeah, I accepted that a week or a week and a half ago as well. It sucks, but Love is a ridiculously good basketball player and Wiggins is still a question mark. Hopefully we can pry something else from Minny in exchange for caving on Wiggins.

At least we'll still have Ball Hard.

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Following the theme (approaching the podium): "Hi my name is Al and I am ready to accept that Wiggins will be included" :chuckles:

Jack Brickman said:

Yeah, I accepted that a week or a week and a half ago as well. It sucks, but Love is a ridiculously good basketball player and Wiggins is still a question mark. Hopefully we can pry something else from Minny in exchange for caving on Wiggins.

At least we'll still have Ball Hard.

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A lot of people post on here so I cant say exactly you but that seems bizarro world for this forum. MN fans had the mentality that CLE overvalued Wiggins for being hesitant to trade him for Love(I know part of that argument was people didn't think that he had to be included in the trade because of leverage and not value based) but now we overvalue him? I know you are one person and feel I might be blanketing the whole board but there are about 500 pages of people with the exact opposite opinion to the above quote of yours.

***Sorry Jack, you were quoting Randolph

Jack Brickman said:

Yeah, I accepted that a week or a week and a half ago as well. It sucks, but Love is a ridiculously good basketball player and Wiggins is still a question mark. Hopefully we can pry something else from Minny in exchange for caving on Wiggins.

At least we'll still have Ball Hard.

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When people get sad about having to give up Wiggins for Love, just think about this: we lucked into going from Dougie McBuckets to Wiggins to Kevin Love. And that doesn't even take into account that we lucked into LeBron having homesickness and us being the only option to satisfy that need. Could you imagine if LeBron was from NY or LA and he could actually choose which team to play for?

So everyone here really just needs to count their blessings and realize how much of an amazing change of fortunes we have had over the last couple months instead of being greedy (and whiny) about not wanting to give up Wiggins. Life is fucking amazing right now...

Re: The Kevin Love Safari™

I've been reluctant to want to include Wiggins in a deal, but I'm okay with it now. Maybe some of the shock of having LB back, still hasn't really sunk through to all us.

Of course a Wiggins and LB tandem would be awesome to watch, especially defensively, but this is not a rebuilding team anymore. Having Wiggins makes 100% sense if we didn't land LB.

Never would I do a Wiggins for Love trade if that were the case, but things are different. We are now a team that can compete for a title. Our front court is not good enough to win going forward. Not a title at least, and that needs fixed. Of course Kevin Love fixes that hole better than anyone else on the market.

You trade Wiggins for Love, but there are conditions involved. YOU DO NOT include draft picks, and take back contracts, unless we can pry away Dieng too.

Draft picks might not mean much to fans now, but these picks can still be trading assets that we can use in a separate deal, or picks that will be used to fill out depth going forward.

Just because we're in a win it all now mode, don't act like draft picks have no meaning. That's how bad organizations think.

Cratylus said:

Thank goodness you're not the Cavs' GM. Ask a team like the Spurs if those late first-round picks have any merit to your team or if they are easy throw-ins that aren't worth that much.

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I agree those picks have value. But if we could keep Wiggins there aren't many assets we should take off the table. Protect them, add the right to swap, whatever, but keeping a star in the making, getting a star, and a solid big is one hell of a haul if the biggest hold up is a few picks.

Jmo, that a mid to late 20's or 30th pick is basically worthless.

Re: The Kevin Love Safari™

KeyzerSozee said:

Well I'll take my money and put it on a 65 win team or 70 win team because they are doing something right. And we have to recall two things.

1.) One 60 win team could not figure out D Howard (Mike Brown, Genius)

2.) Second, do you really think Lebron's Elbow was hurt?

Either of those are and were contenders to me.


Edit: The Graph actually disproves your point and shows the more over 60 wins the more often the team WINS A CHAMPIONSHIP. On a Pretty upwards curve from 54 wins.

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Point is comment was made that with Wiggins or Love this team is a 60 win team.. my point is when the playoffs start its a total different ball game.. those 60 win teams could be nothing alike.. the 60 win regular season team with Wiggins and Bennett on it IMO isn't as playoff ready as the one wit Love on it.. I assume you get my point

Randolphkeys said:

How does that sell tickets in Minnesota?

I understand what is going on. The business side of the game, making money, has been ignored by most Cavaliers fans because Dan Gilbert has been willing to take a financial hit to rebuild and lose money short term. Taylor isn't in that position. It is obvious that they won't have the same optimism going into this year without Kevin Love, but they want to stop the bleeding. As Cavaliers fans who just gutted through four years of losing basketball, we are quick to tell them, "Life's a bitch sometimes, ain't it? Now give us your All Pro losers." Well, they need to play this thing out.

**I guess it's time for me to say, IMHO, Wiggins will be included. I've thought that for over a week. Minnesota overvalues him too much.

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I've pretty much got comfortable already with the fact we will have to lose Wiggins. By some miracle we could hold on to him, that would be amazing, but I'm not holding my breath.

Now that we lose Wiggins, it would be nice to find another wing serviceable on defense, since LeBron is basically carrying that load all himself. Of course we couldn't have foreseen losing Wiggins, but this is where it would be nice to have drafted Cleanthony Early. Not a knock on Joe Harris, but we have plenty of shooters already (with Love coming in, and possibly adding Ray Allen).

So it would be cool to add Corey Brewer, but his salary is stretching it a bit. If we give up Wiggins, I would love to end up with Dieng and McDaniels back. One of them at the least. So something like we get Love, Dieng, and McDaniels. Wolves get Wiggins, Young, (unguaranteeds), and a pick or two. And 76ers get Bennett, Barea's expiring, and a 1st rounder (or Joe Harris if necessary).

That is pretty much the perfect trade in my eyes. Maybe there is a dark horse third team, but the third team isn't being brought in just to help satisfy the Wolves needs, but also a couple of our own after losing Wiggins and Bennett. Which is a big man and/or a defensive wing.

The best way to extend LeBron's career is to let him play 32 minutes a night while we have scorers like Irving, Waiters, and Love still able to extend the lead while he rests.

If I were Cleveland. I offer Minny the following three deals:

1.) Waiters + Bennett + Lucas + Miami 1st for Love --- if Push comes to shove from the Minny side, you include the Memphis first as well.

2.) Waiters + Miami 1st to Philly, TT + Young to Minny, Love to Cleveland -- For the Cavs it's almost the same deal as above (TT replaces Bennett), but if you can get philly involved, You can give Minny more of a "win now" team.

3.) Wiggins + Bennett + Lucas for Love + Dieng -- If I'm giving up Wiggins, then I'm demanding a talented Center back, who fits our team. This could be bargained in two ways. I may give up the Miami first. I may also take back Levine instead of Dieng (especially if I can find a way to flip the two firsts for a solid rim protector).

I think I'm happy with all three of those deals -- and my guess is those (or something similar to them) have been the Cleveland offers. We'd be sitting here waiting on every one. We wait on #1, because I don't think Minny is too happy with a loss like that. #2 will take some time to work out because of Philly, #3 will have to wait for Wiggins contract to clear.

OptimusPrime said:

The best way to extend LeBron's career is to let him play 32 minutes a night while we have scorers like Irving, Waiters, and Love still able to extend the lead while he rests.

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I still think going forward, the Cavs need to target a taller, bigger, defensive perimeter player to take the pressure off him defensively. Scoring wise he's going to be fine, he's not going to have to carry the load like he used to. The Heat last season had no problem scoring the basketball, despite Wade's absence. They lead the league in shooting, its defensively where we can't always ask LB to do so much.