Howlin' T-Wolf

Our very own Kevin Love was featured on ESPN’s Sport Science, where he showed off his skills in boxing out under the hoop.

Contrary to what Tom reported yesterday, Kevin Love has now decided against signing in Turkey with Besiktas.

Love claims that playing abroad “is still very much an option” but playing in Turkey just wasn’t the “right decision for me.”

Besiktas of Turkey is a club team based in Istanbul and have already signed Deron Williams of the New Jersey Nets. Other targets for the team include Chicago Bulls’ forwards Carlos Boozer and Luol Deng.

Since Kevin Love is the only Timberwolf doing anything really noteworthy in this lock out, we’ll continue with the 3rd straight Howlin’ T-Wolf post about him.

From K-Love’s twitter:

Appreciate Jesse Rambis doing work on the beach volleyball courts this morning. Gotta say, he might be the best Rambis I’ve been coached by.

Naturally, Love clarified several minutes (and doubtless 450 billion replied tweets) later:

Haha I was being facetious people. Have nothing but love for the whole Rambis fam. You know this! #whysoserious

Definitely sounds like Kevin Love…throwing out a wicked burn that he didn’t really mean; one that went over the heads of most of his followers.

Still. My buddy and I may or may not have read that tweet, then stared at each other wide-eyed with “NO HE DIDN’T!” stares on our faces, before agreeing that it would absolutely be a mistake if I didn’t share both tweets on here. So, there you go.

Kevin Love and his Twitter account continue to entertain us all.

Via ESPN:

Former UCLA basketball players Kevin Love, Russell Westbrook and Baron Davis were there, along with Olympic sprint champion Maurice Green and former NFL star Keyshawn Johnson, turning UCLA’s sideline into an ESPY-like red carpet.

“A tight end, a wide out and a strong safety,” Neuheisel said, pointing first at Love and then at Westbrook then at Davis as the three tossed around a football.

Love, too, put out the verbal out of work sign when he chimed in with “size 18 for me.”

Why Kevin Love looks so happy to be locked out is a MYSTERY to me

This lockout feels like the first hour of a very long shift at a job you hate. At this point, you haven’t missed out on anything yet. But looking ahead, everything appears so bleak and discouraging that you have to complain about it.

However, I think it’s clear the owners are getting somewhere.

After all, the players are obviously reeling. Turning a bunch of millionaires loose with nothing but time on their hands? They are locked out of their practice facilities. They can’t have trainers and coaches screaming at them all day. In fact, they can’t talk to their trainers or coaches. The horrors. How awful for them. They are like a direction-less bunch of sheep; sheep with nothing to do but plank Porsches and hang out on the beach with women so hot they were listed as a threat to the planet in “An Inconvenient Truth”.

I know you just clicked that link and you are wondering the same thing as me: “are those women really really tall, or is Kevin actually a lot shorter than he is listed?” I wish I could tell you.

But seriously, Kevin? Shaving your head into an awesome bro-hawk? Signing with Jose Cuervo as a sponsor? Taking up professional beach volleyball? Can you try to at least LOOK like this lockout is bumming you out? Just for the rest of us who are stuck here in the midwest fantasizing about the next time we might actually get to see you in uniform. And I’m not talking about a Cuervo uniform, either, unless you can somehow convince the NBA to broadcast your beach volleyball games on League Pass.

Love was having so much fun, in fact, that it became necessary to bring him down a couple notches. WHAT’S THAT YOU SAY, KEVIN? PLAYERS IN THE NBA WERE CHEERING AGAINST THE HEAT?! KEVIN LOVE HATES THE HEAT, EVERYBODY! HE SAYS THEY ARE AWFUL PEOPLE! SPREAD IT AROUND!

(Sigh) I shouldn’t even have to do this, but Kevin’s exact wording:

[Did people around the league enjoy seeing Miami lose?] Oh yeah, great amount of joy out of it. Plus, for me, they say nice guys, good guys finish last. But Dallas, they just had a slew of great guys and veterans on their team that made for just a great team. It wasn’t just two, three, four guys on the team, like Miami I kind of felt it was. Around the league, it was kind of a consensus that guys were happy.

No, really? Guys were happy because there were some great guys in Dallas who finally won a championship…and because the Mavericks were a team rather than a group of talented individuals? That sounds ridiculous! That sounds like…the rest of America. How absurd to find that players are human beings too.

This lockout is turning us all into idiots. Actually worse…this lockout is turning us into junior high gossip girls.

So you know what? This stuff is unequivocally awesome. You know that long-ass shift I mentioned above? Love is like the coworker who makes it all a little less crappy. If this lockout manages to bum out Kevin Love, we will have a truly serious catastrophe on our hands.

Ignore all of us, 42. Party on.

According to some statheads who are much smarter than me, Love may have saved Minnesota from the worst season of all time

So here’s an interesting little stat that could make you want to hit your head on the wall several hundred times.

According to The Wages of Wins blog, Kevin Love lead the NBA in Wins Produced this season. According to their analysis, Love produced 23 team wins. This is mildly confusing, since the T-Wolves only won 17 games this season.

The blog bases their numbers off a team’s efficiency differential, which is the numerical gap between a team’s offensive and defensive efficiency.

Without Love, Minnesota would be expected to have the lowest differential in league history.  Would that actually happen?  Well, there are diminishing returns in the NBA.  So some of Love’s teammates would get a bit better.  But the diminishing returns effect is not so large that Minnesota — without Love — couldn’t challenge the 1972-73 76ers for the worst record in the NBA.

But even this isn’t the aforementioned depressing stat. The depressing stat is this: if their analysis is correct, and Love was replaced with a player of average production, the T-Wolves would have won 2.9 games this season.

Woof.

Of course, as the writers themselves point out, these statistics aren’t able to measure how much, say, Anthony Randolph would have produced if Love hadn’t been playing, giving Randolph more minutes. And considering Randolph’s performance per 36 minutes (21 points, 9 rebounds, 50% FG) was actually quite efficient, I think it’s safe to say that Minnesota would have won a very few more games than 3.

But the writers weren’t done trying to drive Timberwolves’ fans off the edge of a cliff.

First, Minnesota has done an amazing job of finding the least productive lottery picks in the NBA.  And secondly (a point related to the first observation), Kevin Love should probably try to get out of Minnesota as soon as possible.

Guys. GUYS! You’re killing the committee (of one). Ok, so Jonny Flynn hasn’t exactly panned out. And Wes Johnson is…streaky. (To put it very nicely.) And we all know Love is a threat to leave, even though it’s been rumored he wants to stay. We all know that Minnesota will probably have to overpay him to keep him around. But Rubio is coming! Seriously! It’s for real this time! (We hope. More on this later.) And Love and Beasley get along really well, by all reports! And…well, Minneapolis has a lot of corporations who could sponsor Love! Leave us some hope here. Jeez.

Anyway, despite the Minnesota Haterade these dudes are chugging (seriously, listen to the podcast, it gets worse), it’s definitely an interesting (if Prozac-inducing) stat, and I encourage you to go check out the full list.

LAST YEAR, AFTER MY second season, I felt we were going to have a lockout, so I started thinking, How much do I have to put away if we miss a whole year?

I don’t have the most to worry about, but losing a whole year of pay is a lot of money for anybody.

Who knows how long we’ll be out. But I’ve got a Plan B, two of them actually. I’d like to pursue my broadcasting career. I’ll probably go back to UCLA and finish my communications degree. Obviously there wouldn’t be NBA games to call, but maybe I could work some college games. Or I might do a little Ochocinco route and go play another sport. When I was little, I wanted to be a pitcher. Maybe I’ll go try out for the Twins. I still think I can do it. I last pitched when I was 15 and had a fastball [reportedly clocked at 90 mph], curve and changeup. I really thought that was going to be my sport. I’m sure I could still throw the ball around for a living if it came to that.

Check out the whole article here.

Via ESPN:

Timberwolves All-Star Kevin Love has been upgraded to questionable for Minnesota’s game against Boston after improvement in his strained left groin.

Love participated in a light practice Saturday after missing Minnesota’s last two games. The Timberwolves host the Celtics on Sunday, and Love said if he wakes up feeling good he’ll “probably try to give it a go.” He said most of the pain is gone, but the muscle is still tight.

Love was hurt on March 16 against Utah. He played in two more games, but left in the second quarter against Sacramento last Sunday and missed games this week against Dallas and Oklahoma City.

In Love’s absence, newly acquired Anthony Randolph totaled 55 points and 26 rebounds in the last two games.

That last line just about sums it all up. Is it wrong to question the Wolves’ ability and winning chances without their superstar in the lineup? Maybe the Big Al vs. K-Love debate was a bit more heated than we all originally thought, because there’s something about this team with Anthony Randolph in that makes Kahn’s vision a bit more believable

Via ESPN Insider:

According to Jerry Zgoda of the Star Tribune, Wolves president David Kahn still expects Rubio to play in Minnesota next season.

Kevin Love is friends with Rubio and stays in contact with the young point guard.

“I still text him every now and then,” Love said. “Not too often, once or twice a month. I’ve always said I hope he comes over sooner rather than later so we can get this thing started.”

Love thinks Rubio can make an impact in the NBA.

Congrats, Kevin.

As you all surely know by now, Kevin Love accomplished a marvelous milestone tonight in a blowout win against the Indiana Pacers. Sadly I’m running behind on some last-minute studying, so take in what you can from this recap.

The Wolves and Pacers came out firing on all cylinders. Only problem is the Wolves were the only team actually making their shots. In both the third and fourth quarters, I feared for the Pacers in their quest to score a minimal 10 points in the quarter! Granted the Wolves were playing solid defense, more so than usual, but it really was a matter of the Pacers never finding a fluid rhythm on offense. Both Paul George and Roy Hibbert got into early foul trouble and Danny Granger couldn’t toss pebble into the ocean if he tried. A team will never win a game shooting under 30-percent (Don’t mark my words on that, though.)

Our offense, however, looked good all night; good, not great. Some guys, namely Michael Beasley and Wayne Ellington, forced a ton of shots and never got into a true flow throughout the game. You can tell Beasley has been struggling with the mental side of the game. His passes aren’t crisp and he forces shots all over the court. I heard someone rumble around me that he’s shooting 17-percent in the past 15 games, or something like that. Whatever the actual number, it’s clearly obvious his stroke isn’t on and neither is his mind.

But on the other hand, Anthony Randolph, Luke Ridnour and Love all had good games on the offensive end. Toss in 12 points from Anthony Tolliver and you have a solid set of reserves that helped contribute to a good win.

Enough of the game though — we all understand it was a blowout — let’s put this phenomenal streak into perspective. We’ve been tracking Kevin Love’s double doubles since November 22nd. The last game that Love failed to obtain a double double was against the Los Angeles Lakers on November 19th, which could very well have been his worst game of his career. But since the start of his double double streak, Love has managed to score 1,109 points, has grabbed 852 rebounds and logged a total of 2,011 minutes. Average all that out and you get 21.3 ppg, 16.4 rpg in 38.7 mpg. That’s extraordinary for player in today’s day and age and style of basketball.

Next up is the Utah Jazz, Friday night. Big Al returns to the Target Center, should be a good time.

Until then, ciao!