“I have a very, very good memory, and I always remember the people who have done right by me, and the people who have done wrong by me.”
“It will be embedded in my brain, and something I won’t forget about. There’s no telling what will happen. I would love to compete for a championship in Minnesota, but …” Kevin Love, 2012.
I like big prophetic ‘buts’, but I cannot lie. The Minnesota Timberwolves deserve to lose one of the top ten if not, top five players in the league.
The rocky relationship between Love and Minnesota’s top brass has finally driven him out of town.
Love’s departure is not a matter of ‘if’ or even a matter of ‘when’ after Timberwolves owner Glen Taylor spilled the beans that a trade will be completed on August 23, the day Cleveland’s Andrew Wiggins is eligible to be traded for him.
The problems between Love and the Timberwolves began early on. During his first two years, Love was mainly confined to a reserve role, only starting 59 of his first 141 games despite excellent on court production.
His limited role was centred on a belief that he could not co-exist with teammate Al Jefferson due to their defensive liabilities.
Ultimately the Wolves favoured Love and decided to trade Al Jefferson to the Utah Jazz to free up playing time for their young star. However Love made it known he believed the two could have worked together if given a chance and was against the trade as it returned little help to the team.
Entering his third season and despite Jefferson’s absence, Love was playing less than 30 minutes a game. This was to the disbelief of the many of the fans and basketball observers at the time who thought his play deserved more time.
Love was eventually able to force his way into more playing time by putting up a historic 31-point, 31-rebound game which announced him as a superstar of the future.
This had not been seen in the NBA for 28 years. Hall of Famer Moses Malone accomplished the feat.
During Love’s early days, the Timberwolves had appointed David Kahn as its president of basketball operations. Although his time in the role was short-lived, it will go down as one of the worst management tenures in the history of sports.
So bad in fact it spawned the meme ‘KAHHHHHHHHHHHHN’ taken from the Star Trek which fittingly represented the shock, anger and exasperation at each one of his baffling moves.
Kahn’s litany of mistakes is an article on its own, but the greatest mistake regarding Love’s contract has just fully blossomed.
The simple fact is Minnesota should have Love locked up until the end of the 2017 season. Love was coming off a sensational 10-11 season where he averaged 20.2 points, a league leading 15.2 rebounds per game and won the Most Improved Player award.
With his level of production it seemed a no-brainer to offer Love the designated player contract. Put simply a team can offer one player on their team a five-year extension from their rookie contract.
Kahn decided not to give this contract to Love instead he wanted to save it for young point guard Ricky Rubio who had yet to play a game in the NBA. He has since proven unworthy of such a contract.
It was a major slap in the face for Love who had worked hard to improve his game and his body shape since being drafted in an effort to play at an elite level.
Minnesota is a small market with low crowds and notoriously snowy weather which is a major barrier in luring quality players to the play for the team. The fact that they had a player producing at such a high level who wanted to sign for five years should have had management doing cartwheels.
Making matters worse, in order to convince Love to accept the four-year contract they added an option allowing Love to opt out after three years – at Love’s request of course. He recently informed the team he would be using the option, forcing his imminent trade.
Another sour note for Love was when he broke his hand before the 12-13 season. He claimed it was caused by knuckle push-ups yet when he informed the team management they met the news with skepticism.
They believed it was broken as part of an altercation because it took Love a day to report the incident. This unsurprisingly infuriated Love as it again showed a lack of trust and belief in him from the Timberwolves.
Adding salt to the wounds, soon after Glenn Taylor publicly stated that he didn’t believe Kevin Love was a star because he hasn’t led the team to the playoffs. Seemingly forgetting the poor roster he surrounded Love with.
Now if these instances of Love’s time at Minnesota were not bad enough, then there was this epic disaster.
If only Minnesota’s management could have shown Kevin Love a little more love, they could have kept their superstar in town at least for a few more years.
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