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Haberstroh:
Kevin Love's time to shine
The numbers point to a perfect fit in Cleveland for underappreciated Love
Kevin Love may not officially be a Cleveland Cavalier until next week, but that won't stop us from breaking down his potential impact on his new team and alongside LeBron James.
In case you've been sleeping under a rock, Minnesota has agreed in principle to trade Love to Cleveland for No. 1 overall pick Andrew Wiggins, Anthony Bennett and a protected 2015 first-round draft pick. The trade can't be officially completed until Aug. 23.
For many, this trade is about James and his ability to assemble another championship team. But in reality, Love has the most to gain from this partnership.
Here are three things to know about Love in anticipation of the NBA's newest dynamic duo.
1. Kevin Love will finally have a co-star
The stat: Zero "fringe All-Star" teammates
If you ask a random NBA fan to define Love's career to date, you'll probably hear a response that includes the fact that he's never been to the playoffs. Six seasons, no playoff appearances. The lack of team success doesn't jibe with the mind-boggling individual numbers he's put up over his career, which tends to lead to some lazy analysis.
He's a stat-padder! What a fraud! Not a team player!
Give me a break. Blaming Love for the lack of playoff appearances is dangerously reductive. Any star needs a strong supporting cast to make the playoffs, especially if they play in the loaded Western Conference. After all, it's a team game. However, it's much easier to pin the blame on Love rather than taking the time to break down the quality of each of his supporting casts. That takes real work.
From a supporting cast standpoint, Love has probably been dealt the worst hand of any star in the league. The truth is that Love has never played with an All-Star in his career. In fact, if you look at his best teammate-seasons, you'll find that none of them have put up at least seven win shares. About 40 players reach this threshold every year, so we're casting a wider net than just All-Stars. We're talking the Jimmy Butlers (7.1 win shares) and Lance Stephensons (7.4 win shares) of the world. And Love has never had the luxury of playing next to any of these "fringe All-Stars."
Seriously, who is the best player Love has ever played with in Minnesota? You could go with Al Jefferson, but Love only played two seasons with him and one of them was Love's rookie season, when Jefferson missed 32 games. Jefferson never reached seven win shares in his two seasons with Love. Nikola Pekovic's best doesn't top it. Neither do the best Minnesota campaigns from Andrei Kirilenko, Corey Brewer, Kevin Martin or Ricky Rubio. None of the other big names in Minnesota -- Michael Beasley, Martell Webster, Darko Milicic, Luke Ridnour and Randy Foye -- eclipses seven win shares in any season for Minnesota.
So how does Love's luck compare to other stars in the NBA? I looked up the supporting casts of each All-NBA player this past season to see how many times they played with a teammate that accumulated at least seven win shares in a season. Remember, Love has played with zero such teammates.
Take a look at what we found.
Yep, Love is the only All-NBA player who has never had a worthy co-pilot by this measure. Tony Parker leads the way with 23 teammate-seasons that achieved "fringe All-Star" status. (Sidenote: How much differently would we view Parker if he hadn't played with guys like Tim Duncan, Manu Ginobili, Kawhi Leonard and David Robinson throughout his NBA career?)
Crunching the data some more, we find that the average All-NBA player has 1.2 teammates to have at least fringe All-Star status every season. Doing the math for Love, we'd expect him to have a total of seven such teammates over his career by now. In reality, he's been given zero.
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For another All-NBA comparison, look at James Harden. He's played in one fewer season than Love and he's enjoyed nine teammates who posted at least seven win shares in a season. Outside of Love, Curry has had the hardest luck in this department, but even he has enjoyed two seasons of strong teammate play in his five seasons. Golden State could have relieved both Curry and Love of their burdens, but alas, Klay Thompson was deemed pretty much untouchable even for a talent like Love.
But Love can sleep easily now. Next season in Cleveland, it's possible that LeBron James, Kyrie Irving and Anderson Varejao will add three names to his (now empty) pile. It's about time Love got some help.
2. Get ready for Love-to-LeBron touchdowns
The stat: 83 touchdown passes, most in NBA last season
You can't find many players like Love in the annals of NBA history. A 3-point marksman, world-class rebounder and elite passer all in one package? Good luck finding a comp for that.
But Love's passing talents are what often go unnoticed. Last season, he averaged 4.4 assists, which is higher than the assist averages of Manu Ginobili, Andre Iguodala and Cleveland's backup point guard last season, Jarrett Jack. Among big men, only Joakim Noah registered a higher assist rate than Love.
No one passes the rock like he can. To help illustrate this fact, I asked SportVU to relay his outlet pass data from last season, and the results were astounding. According to SportVU's 3D-camera tracking, Kevin Love dished out 83 outlet passes after a defensive rebound that traveled over 20 feet and led to a fast break. These are what I like to call touchdown passes.
How crazy high is that number? The next-highest total for any other player was Spencer Hawes, who delivered 34 such passes. Yes, Love doubled the second-highest rate.
In fact, the Love-to-Corey Brewer connection produced 57 such "touchdown passes" on the season. That's more than Hawes passed to any of his teammates in 2013-14.
Oh, and did I mention that LeBron was a two-time All-State wide receiver in high school? This is another reason James will be thrilled to share the floor with Love. James was only on the receiving end of 18 touchdown passes last season in Miami, with six of those coming from Dwyane Wade. Chris Bosh only tallied seven touchdown passes last season, four of which went to James.
But James isn't in Miami anymore. And fortunately for James, Love will be joining him in Cleveland soon. Sorry, Johnny Manziel -- you have one more quarterback to compete with next season in Cleveland.
3. Love can play the 5
The stat: Timberwolves scored a scorching 109.5 points per 100 possessions with Love at center
If you watched Team USA take home gold in the 2012 Olympics, you probably already know that Love's defensive issues are overstated. With Coach Krzyzewski at the helm, Team USA relied on Love at the 5 for big minutes during their championship run. As I pointed out in 2012, Coach K gave Love twice as many minutes as then-reigning defensive player of the year Tyson Chandler in the gold-medal game. With James and Love manning the frontcourt, Team USA did just fine.
Expect more of that in Cleveland. Love has his warts as a defender, but thanks to his defensive rebounding chops and ability to avoid costly fouls, he's much more capable than his reputation would indicate. Last season in Minnesota, Love played at center for 37.6 percent of his overall minutes and the Timberwolves still outscored their opponents by a healthy margin.
After crunching lineup data from NBA StatsCube, we find that the Timberwolves scored 109.5 points per 100 possessions with Love at the 5, which would be good for, oh, first in the NBA in offensive efficiency. And the defense? They allowed 106.1 points per 100 possessions with Love playing center, which is not great, but that still gave them a point-margin of 3.4 points every 100 possessions. The two ratings with Love at the center position are almost identical to the Dallas Mavericks' numbers last season -- 109.0 on offense, 105.9 on defense -- and the Mavericks nearly took the mighty Spurs down in the first round.
As the Timberwolves have shown, you can succeed with Love as the only conventional big man on the floor. The Timberwolves thrived offensively with that formation, and that was with Dante Cunningham primarily at the 4; the Cavs will have the best player on the planet filling that position. The Cavs figure to begin with Varejao starting at center, but coach David Blatt would be wise to feature Love at the 5 for long stretches to fully unlock their offensive potential.
