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Later career Rodman-esque defensive tendencies tbh
Yeah, definitely a good post. Completely obliterates a lot of myth about Love being a worthless stat padder
Later career Rodman-esque defensive tendencies tbh
Amazing stats tbh. When the best player on a non playoff team with a D-league caliber bench sits down along with the rest of the starters, that team plays poorly. Who would've guessed?Love is absolutely a top 10 player. Lmfao at people saying guys like Duncan and Parker are better than him (this coming from a Spurs fan). Don't even get me started with guys like John Wall and Kyrie Irving...that's just flat-out stupid. Are we really going to sit here and lambast Love for his defense and then turn around and say guys like Parker, Irving, and Harden are better than him?
BTW, where does this myth that Love is a horrible defender come from? Minnesota had a top 10 defense for most of the year and ended up 12th defensively. Love ranked well in DRPM as well. He's an average defender...not some huge defensive liability like some of y'all are making him out to be. Being a bad rim protector =/= being a bad defender overall. Bosh isn't a great rim protector either but he's one of the best PnR defenders in the league and overall he's a very good defender. Love played nearly 40% of his minutes last season at center, which isn't a good way to utilize him. Play him at PF and pair him up with a solid rim protector and he'll be just fine defensively.
Let's look at how Minnesota played with Love on/off the court:
With Love on the court: ORTG = 111.6, DRTG = 106.0, Net RTG = +5.6
With Love off the court: ORTG = 101.1, DRTG = 106.5, Net RTG = -5.3
So with him on the court, Minnesota clearly outplayed their opponents. When he went to the bench, they'd fall apart offensively and give up leads.
outta here with this primitive logic of "Putting up good stats on a bad team = statpadder who doesn't have a real impact". KG missed the playoffs 3 years in a row from 2005-2007. Only an idiot would say he wasn't a top player in the league who had a monstrous impact during that span.
sucking up to harlem huhLove is absolutely a top 10 player. Lmfao at people saying guys like Duncan and Parker are better than him (this coming from a Spurs fan). Don't even get me started with guys like John Wall and Kyrie Irving...that's just flat-out stupid. Are we really going to sit here and lambast Love for his defense and then turn around and say guys like Parker, Irving, and Harden are better than him?
BTW, where does this myth that Love is a horrible defender come from? Minnesota had a top 10 defense for most of the year and ended up 12th defensively. Love ranked well in DRPM as well. He's an average defender...not some huge defensive liability like some of y'all are making him out to be. Being a bad rim protector =/= being a bad defender overall. Bosh isn't a great rim protector either but he's one of the best PnR defenders in the league and overall he's a very good defender. Love played nearly 40% of his minutes last season at center, which isn't a good way to utilize him. Play him at PF and pair him up with a solid rim protector and he'll be just fine defensively.
Let's look at how Minnesota played with Love on/off the court:
With Love on the court: ORTG = 111.6, DRTG = 106.0, Net RTG = +5.6
With Love off the court: ORTG = 101.1, DRTG = 106.5, Net RTG = -5.3
So with him on the court, Minnesota clearly outplayed their opponents. When he went to the bench, they'd fall apart offensively and give up leads.
outta here with this primitive logic of "Putting up good stats on a bad team = statpadder who doesn't have a real impact". KG missed the playoffs 3 years in a row from 2005-2007. Only an idiot would say he wasn't a top player in the league who had a monstrous impact during that span.
welcome to the welching company
Love is a top 10 player for sure...
Lebron
KD
Blake Griffin
Russel Westbrook
Chris Paul
Dwight Howard
Anthony Davis
These are the only players that I would put above love.
Love is the best player among second tier stars..Parker, Harden, etc....
You using sarcasm to avoid actually responding with any sort of substance? Those stats illustrate how ty their bench was. Give Minnesota a competent bench, and they're a 50 win team that makes the playoffs. Suddenly half of these criticisms about Love go away, despite him being the exact same damn player. Funny how that works.
BTW, let's look at Anthony Davis's on/off numbers...since he's the best player on a non-playoff team, we should see numbers similar to the ones we saw with Love, right?
With Davis on the court: Net RTG = -1.8
With Davis on the court: Net RTG = -3.7
No teams are typically going to play better with their starters. But the gap usually isn't near as big as the gap between Minnesota's starters and their bench. It's amazing I'm having to explain the importance of having a competent bench when we just watched the Spurs do what they did in 2014.
What is Love supposed to do? When he's on the court, his team plays great and noticeably outplays their opponents. When he's not on the court, they fall apart. I'm not arguing Love is the sole reason this is the case, but are you really going to sit here and argue that Rubio or Corey Brewer are the main reasons for Minnesota having a top 10 offense?
The only criticisms I see when it comes to Love are:
1) "He's a horrible defender" - despite the majority of metrics pointing to him being an average defender at worst...only evidence I've seen is someone bringing up his opponents' FG% at the rim. This is like saying someone is a horrible player on offense solely because he sucks at shooting 3s. Rim protection isn't the only aspect of defense, and Love isn't a center. If you play him at his true position and pair him up with a halfway decent defensive center, he'll be a serviceable defender. Some of y'all act like he's a cancer on defense despite there being absolutely no evidence to support that claim. He's one of the best offensive players in the game, and a top 3 rebounder in the league. He'd have to make DeJuan Blair look like Bill Russell in order to bring his value down to the level y'all are seemingly putting him at.
2) "He's a statpadder who puts up empty numbers since his team only won 40 games" - ignoring the fact that Minnesota's team outside of their starting 5 was absolute trash, and that practically every metric points to Love having a huge impact on his team.
Another thing that people always look over when it comes to Love: he's a great passer for someone his size. Dude has some Duncan-esque outlet passes, and he has no problem finding the open man from the post as well. He's not some black hole on offense that can't handle a double team.
Last edited by SpursFan86; 08-04-2014 at 06:20 PM.
meh, that was actually a well thought out, coherent, and intelligent post. backed up what he said. can't hate even though i disagree
doesn't matter he's the next coming of thunderPUP and apalisoc ugh
i dont think i've noticed him before
Nah don't worry about that. I don't really come down here that often and I'm not into shooting the with trolls all day. I won't post down here unless it's a topic I'm particularly interested in.
since he arrived hes always complimenting leBRONZE, a typical harlemheat thing to do, and using these stupid advanced metrics to prop up a career loser like k love. hes knocking on the WC door
slurp slurp slurp
1. Love averaged 8.1....Harden averaged 9.2....Don't act like that is a huge difference. Every player relies on free throws, that is just a stupid argument to try and make.]Well for starters, he doesn't rely on food stamps like Harden[/B] and though he's not a competent defender he still brings defensive value whether you view it as stat padding or not. I know you're going to write an essay and defend Harden but he's about the most useless player in that list.
I'm willing to bet if you remove Harden and put a non All Star to replace him like Afflalo and replace T Jones with Love they'll go deeper in the playoffs.
2. Love had a defensive rating of 104, Jones had a defensive rating of 105. That is unacceptable for an "All star" big man. And supposedly top 10 no less.
3. Then you would have no one in the backcourt that could score or create, you would still have the same problems Jones had against Aldridge... Again, dumb.
4. Harden had a TS% of 61.8%, and an EFG% of 52.9%. Compare that to Love (a near 7 footer) whose TS% WAS 59.1% with an EFG% of 52.4%, which for a big man that is horrendous.
Now compare that with Harden'sCheck out Kevin Love's quarter/quarter stats:
1st: 8.3 points, 4.8 rebounds, 46.5% FG, 41.6% 3 Point
2nd: 5.2 points, 2.4 rebounds, 46.6% FG, 38.8% 3 Point
3rd: 8.4 points, 4 rebounds, 48.4% FG, 37.2% 3 Point
4th: 4.4 points, 2.2 rebounds, 38.4% FG, 30% 3 Point
It's not the 4th quarter dips in points & rebounds that's as big of deal. Kevin only plays about 7 mins in the 4th. It's the field goal & three point percentages. That's a 15.7% lower FG percentage in the 4th. And, a 18.9% lower three point percentages. And, that...is....not....good.
Need more? In games with a margin of 1-5 points, Kevin Love has his lowest field goal percentage (43.3%) as compared with games with margin of 6-10, 11-15, and so on.
So that's just the 4th quarter. Let's get deep into the 4th.
- In the 20 games that Kevin Love has played with a less than 5 point margin & 5 minutes left, he has a FG % of 34.3%. His 3PT % is 36.8%
- In the 19 games that Kevin Love has played with less than a 5 point margin & 3 minutes left, he has a FG % of 32%. His 3PT % is 26.7%
http://stats.nba.com/playerStats.htm...erMode=PerGame
Top 10 Clutch Players 2013-2014 Season Rank Player WPA eWPA clWPA gbWPA 1 James Harden 7.20 3 4.53 8 3.09 0.42 77 2 LeBron James 8.43 2 6.92 2 2.80 1.30 3 3 Anthony Davis 5.75 7 4.25 12 2.38 0.89 19 4 Damian Lillard 5.41 10 4.40 9 2.22 1.20 4 5 Blake Griffin 6.33 4 4.81 7 1.95 0.43 73 6 Stephen Curry 5.00 11 4.29 10 1.87 1.16 6 7 Chris Bosh 5.74 8 4.26 11 1.81 0.33 109 8 Wesley Matthews 5.98 6 5.15 6 1.72 0.88 20 9 Kevin Durant 9.30 1 9.02 1 1.66 1.38 1 10 Thaddeus Young 3.36 23 2.22 55 1.65 0.51 55
Bottom 10 Clutch Free Throw Shooters 2013-2014 Season rank Player WPA eWPA clWPA gbWPA 1 Dwight Howard -2.42 480 -2.48 480 -0.58 -0.64 480 2 Kevin Love 0.02 183 0.59 10 -0.41 0.16 9 3 Andre Drummond -1.51 478 -1.68 478 -0.34 -0.51 479 4 DeAndre Jordan -1.55 479 -1.70 479 -0.28 -0.43 478 5 Joakim Noah -0.37 465 -0.17 423 -0.18 0.02 133 6 Nene Hilario -0.80 476 -0.75 475 -0.17 -0.12 453 7 J.J. Hickson -1.09 477 -1.16 477 -0.16 -0.22 473 8 Amir Johnson -0.25 449 -0.14 403 -0.15 -0.04 391 9 Greg Monroe -0.63 474 -0.60 473 -0.15 -0.12 454 10 Brandon Jennings -0.16 424 0.04 141 -0.15 0.06 52
Lol Dwert, but you see who is right behind him
1) DRTG is a horrible measure of defensive ability. It's heavily based on team defense + blocks/steals. Parker was ranked higher than Bowen several times according to DRTG IIRC, and their career averages are very similar (Parker = 104, Bowen = 102)...no one in their right mind would say Parker was even remotely close to Bowen defensively though.
2) Lmao at 59.1 TS% and 52.4 eFG% being "horrendous" for a big man. That's flat-out wrong. Let's look at some all-time great offensive bigs and their career averages:
Kareem - 59.2 TS% and 55.9 eFG%
Karl Malone - 57.7 TS% and 51.8 eFG%
Hakeem - 55.3 TS% and 51.3 eFG%
3) Love's clutch stats are definitely a point of concern, but aren't nearly a big enough reason to knock him down from not even being a top 10 player in the league. People go overboard with the whole "clutchness" cliche.
Those are different eras where big men existed and were physical. Love can't shoot effectively against the likes of LaMarcus Aldridge and Terrence Jones' of the NBA. Also, Love doesn't play in the paint. You can bet his numbers would be worse if he had to post up all the time instead of shoot 3's.
Man, there is no possible way you can spin a 59.1 TS% as horrendous. Doesn't matter what era you're in or what position a guy plays. Love is an elite scorer. If you can't even admit this, then this argument is absolutely pointless. I'd rather hear the typical regurgitated about him being a "horrible defender" then listen to someone try to argue that Love putting up 26 ppg on well above average efficiency (regardless of position) is "horrendous".
45% shooting for a Power Forward is not "well above average" efficiency.
BTW, I like how you decide to bring up the table showing the bottom 10 clutch FT shooters, but don't mention anything about the explanation:
If you're not a Timberwolves fan, you may wonder how Kevin Love, an above average free throw shooter, made it on this list. In Minnesota, they know exactly why: with 2.2 seconds left to go in a January 4 contest against the Thunder, Love was fouled on a three point shot with his team down by two. Love missed all three shots
Those numbers are small sample sizes and as a result, one horrible night can have a huge effect on the overall numbers. They even mention this when it comes to Brandon Jennings ranking poorly:
Season "leader" Brandon Jennings had a pretty brutal night on December 12 against the Pelicans, with about -0.50 of his negative -1.17 clutch WPA coming in that game
My only issue with this post is the defensive rating... if you claim the bench is "horrible", how come the starters (with Love) have basically the same defensive rating?Love is absolutely a top 10 player. Lmfao at people saying guys like Duncan and Parker are better than him (this coming from a Spurs fan). Don't even get me started with guys like John Wall and Kyrie Irving...that's just flat-out stupid. Are we really going to sit here and lambast Love for his defense and then turn around and say guys like Parker, Irving, and Harden are better than him?
...
Let's look at how Minnesota played with Love on/off the court:
With Love on the court: ORTG = 111.6, DRTG = 106.0, Net RTG = +5.6
With Love off the court: ORTG = 101.1, DRTG = 106.5, Net RTG = -5.3
Either the bench isn't that horrible or the starters (including Love) are terrible defenders...
It's also worth noting that all the Wolves starters played 30+ mpg (lead by Love with 36+), where the bench players all played 20mpg or less.
Agreed. But Love is more of a perimeter guy...
I mean if you want to be naive and continue solely looking at FG%, then maybe. But if you use your brain and look at it with context, you'll realize that over a third of Love's FGAs come from 3PA, and he's a well-above average shooter from deep. He's also excellent at getting to the line which boosts his overall scoring efficiency.
For example, look at Lillard. Dude shot 42.4% from the field last year, which is mediocre at best. However, when you actually look at the numbers, you see that a large percentage of his attempts come from shooting 3s. Overall, he's an efficient scorer (56.8 TS%).
FG% doesn't tell the whole story. Your average PF isn't taking 7 threes a game like Love.
Exactly. However, how many effective perimeter playing Power Forwards have been around since Dirk first came in? In Love's case, you play on the perimeter instead of the post, you don't draw the double teams you would if he played in the post, which would open up teammates for good shots.
Well first off, Minnesota was a weird team last year. If you look at SRS (which is generally a good indicator of how good a team is), Minnesota was a top 10 team. They had a better point differential than teams like Dallas, Memphis, and Phoenix. However they were really unlucky in close games (like, all-time levels of unlucky) and lost a bunch of games they should've won. Sure, part of this can be attributed to Love, but it'd be dumb to just dump all of the blame on him. He was the biggest reason they were even in the game in the first place. Imagine a player carrying a team for 40 minutes of the game, and then in the last 5 minutes he wears down and plays below his standards. He shouldn't get a complete free pass, but he shouldn't be labeled some choking loser either. If he didn't play so well in the first 3 quarters, his team wouldn't have even been in position to win. You can win games in the 2nd or 3rd quarter. We saw it in the Finals...the Spurs huge 3rd quarter in Game 5 was what won them that game.
Minnesota's starting unit had a DRTG of 105, which would've been good for 10th in the league in 2014. They were a solid defensive unit. The bench was decent as well defensively, but they were absolutely horrible on offense once Love and Rubio went out. As those numbers show, the offense fell apart when the starters went to the bench.
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