Why do Boston fans need to be convinced that Kevin Love would be a good thing?
Examining 3 stages of Kevin Love denial
COMMENTARY
Three games into the NBA Finals and Kevin Love finds himself in a familiar position: Front and center for another episode of everyone’s favorite game show — Blame Everything on Kevin Love!
As you know, Love’s defense was regarded as a major reason the Warriors won the first two games in Oakland. Then Love missed Game 3 in Cleveland, the Cavs played their best basketball of the series, and the dots connected perfectly in the form of a familiar narrative: The Cavs are better without Kevin Love.
Back in Boston, that narrative always triggers a familiar question:
“Hey, so why not trade him to the Celtics?”
And that question always triggers a familiar debate, which we’ll discuss here in three stages:
Stage 1: Kevin Love Sucks
To start, we bring up the idea of the Celtics acquiring Kevin Love and someone invariably counters with the opinion that Kevin Love sucks. They go all in on Love’s defense, and the fact that he’s soft, and argues that his numbers in Minnesota were merely empty stats padded on a garbage team. You know this argument. You’ve heard it before. You know the perfect response would be to drop a grand piano on the lunatic’s head. But instead, let’s just do this:
Let’s forget Love’s time in Minnesota. Let’s forget the three All Star games, the two All-NBA second teams and the Olympic gold medal. In fact, let’s forget everything we knew about Love before the 2016 NBA Playoffs. OK, ready?
Zap.
OK, so here’s what we know about Kevin Love. On April 17, Love scored 28 points and grabbed 13 rebounds as the Cavaliers fought off the Pistons in Game 1 of the first round. Two weeks later in Atlanta, Love notched 21 points (including five threes) and 15 rebounds as the Cavs went up 3-0 on the Hawks. Two nights later, still in Atlanta, Love posted 28 points (including EIGHT threes) and 13 boards as the Cavs completed their second round sweep. Up next, in the Eastern Conference Finals, Love scored 25 points as the Cavs took control in Game 5; then posted 20 points, 12 rebounds and four assists in the Game 6 clincher.
Of course Love hasn’t been perfect in the playoffs. It’s hard to dominate consistently when you’re the third option on offense. It’s harder when you’re forced to lug around two years worth of passive aggressive tension. Even then, we can all agree there are stretches where Love has just plain struggled, especially on defense. The argument here is not that Love is Tim Duncan or Kevin Garnett. The argument is just the truth —
Kevin Love is still a big time NBA player that’s capable of putting up big time numbers on the NBA’s biggest stage.
Stage 2 Argument: Fine, he’s good. But not good enough.
In this stage we all agree that Love doesn’t suck, but there’s still an issue of him not not-sucking enough. In English, this means that Love is good but not good enough to make a difference, or THE difference. The Celtics will never win a championship with Love as their best player. If the Celtics trade for Love, they’re trading for mediocrity. They’re signing up for a few fun regular seasons followed by an annual second round playoff exit.
This stage of the argument is a little trickier because there’s some truth to it. Will the Celtics ever win a title with Kevin Love as their best player? No. No team will ever win a title with Kevin Love as its best player. And that’s not an insult. Here’s list the of “best players” to win a title in the last decade: Steph Curry, Kawhi Leonard (and those Spurs were a special case), LeBron James, Dirk Nowitzki, Kobe Bryant, Kevin Garnett, Tim Duncan and Dwyane Wade.
But the problem with arguing that the Celtics will never win a title with Kevin Love as their best player is that it ignores the fact that acquiring Kevin Love does not prevent the Celtics from also acquiring someone better than Kevin Love. The Celtics won’t win a title with Love as their best player the same way they wouldn’t have won a title with Paul Pierce as their best player; and definitely wouldn’t have with Ray Allen as their second best player.
In that case Ainge got the last shoe to drop, and the rest is history. And if he was to acquire Love — and I know, this is all so premature — that last shoe would still be floating. Ainge would not be done building. But he’d be closer. For one because removing Love from the Cavs changes the entire landscape of the East. Depending on what happens next, it could shake out and make Cleveland better and stronger. But it also creates a load of uncertainty, and given Cleveland’s history, owner and the power of LeBron, there’s plenty of room for error.
On other side, the Celtics will improve because Kevin Love would be a perfect fit. Everything I just described about Cleveland with the owner, uncertain chain of command, unruly egos and passive aggressive vibe — doesn’t exist in Boston. The extensions for Ainge and Brad Stevens are just the latest steps in the construction of a top notch, cohesive, passionate and logical organization.
While the Cavs freaked out a few summers ago, knowing they had to sweeten the pot for LeBron, and threw Kevin Love into the fire, the Celtics wouldn’t do that. In Kevin Love, they wouldn’t simply be acquiring Superstar No. 3, they’d be acquiring Kevin Love, and they wouldn’t do that unless they were sure they could put him in the best position to succeed. Cleveland is paying Love max money to play a role they could fill with Channing Frye. After two years of torture, Boston would be a rebirth for Love. And with that new enormous chip on his shoulder, he’d fit right in.
Stage 3 Argument: Still wouldn’t trade the pick for him.
If we can agree that the Celtics would be better off with Kevin Love on the team, then we can discuss who they should give up to acquire him. Or more specifically, in the last couple days that discussion has revolved around this year’s No. 3 overall pick.
Would you give it up to get him?
Answer: It doesn’t matter.
It was only two years ago that Cleveland traded No. 1 pick Andrew Wiggins for Love. How inclined do you think they’ll be to turn around and swap him for a questionable No. 3 pick? And what makes you think that Cleveland wants anything to do with any picks? You think LeBron wants picks? You think he’s looking to take some kid under his wing, teach him how to be man and leave him the keys to the city?
There are teams in this league — most teams, in fact — that may be very tempted by this year’s No. 3 and other future Nets picks. But Cleveland’s not one of them. They’re not going to draft Dragan Bender and hope he turns into the next Kevin Love when the other option is just keep current Kevin Love.
The Cavs don’t want picks. They want players. They need players that can help them right now — like Avery Bradley or Jae Crowder or Marcus Smart. So, who should the Celtics give up?
Find out next time, on another episode of Blame Everything on Kevin Love!
Players the Celtics have swung and missed on in the Danny Ainge Era
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