I remember a big thread back in the day debating the merits of trading for AK-47 when Utah put him on the block. He was a legitimately great player at his apex. We got Garnett instead so it all worked out I guess.
[tablegrid= Kirilenko vs. Love ]Cellar-Door said:Yes they have, back when he probably was on the edge of being one in the early to mid-2000s. He was a top 5-10 player in the league in 2003, then got hurt in 2004 while having a great season, and while still very good after that, never quite broke out into a perennial top 10 player. Still he was an amazingly versatile player who was one of the best defenders in the league, passed well, rebounded decently, shot efficiently, but never piled up the points and so flew under the radar. If he had come along 10 years later he would have been far more appreciated.
Devizier said:Can we split this off into another thread?
The small sample size stuff is starting to give me a headache.
Sprowl said:
Now the Kevin Love scenario and comparisons have their own thread, except for the Sullinger-Jefferson comparison, which raises a different set of questions, and gets a third thread.
Start new threads!
By that rational, now that Kirilenko is gone, shouldn't the Wolves have reverted back to their pre-Kirilenko levels? Why, this year, are they on pace to win far more than last year's Kirilenko led 31 wins?wutang112878 said:
Forgot about the 18 games last year and the shortened season (was just looking at win total dur).
But it brings up an interesting question, how did they win 31 in 12/13??? In 11/12 Love played 83% of the games and they were on a 32 win pace. In 12/13 Love plays 22% of the games and that same crew wins 31 Wouldnt we expect there to be a drop off in wins?
Massive. Original poster lost me at #3 however. He's a west coast guy and loud whispers have him wanting to return back out west. Boston is not west.Brickowski said:How much of an upgrade is Love over Sullinger?
Grin&MartyBarret said:By that rational, now that Kirilenko is gone, shouldn't the Wolves have reverted back to their pre-Kirilenko levels? Why, this year, are they on pace to win far more than last year's Kirilenko led 31 wins?
I was gonna go with trading down to get Georgi Dieng.DeJesus Built My Hotrod said:
A bench of Chase Budinger, Alexey Shved and Ronny Turiaf? The beast that is Kevin Martin? Corey Brewer's shiny dome?
This is bugging the crap out of me, are you a Wolves fan? Or do you watch a lot of their games?DeJesus Built My Hotrod said:
A bench of Chase Budinger, Alexey Shved and Ronny Turiaf? The beast that is Kevin Martin? Corey Brewer's shiny dome?
MakMan44 said:This is bugging the crap out of me, are you a Wolves fan? Or do you watch a lot of their games?
Kevin Love: "“Boston is a great city. I’m sure free agents would love to go there, especially with @BCCoachStevens as a coach."
I'm not a Wolves fan either, but I follow their games a bit. They're fun to watch and I listen to Zach Harper's podcast/follow him on Twitter so I get a lot of exposure to them. (Similarly, I pay more attention to the Nuggets than they deserve because Matt Moore's a regular on that podcast too.)MakMan44 said:This is bugging the crap out of me, are you a Wolves fan? Or do you watch a lot of their games?
Not really, it was in the middle of a fluff piece where everyone said nice things. I have no doubts that with cap space and the right situation Boston can sign an A list guy. I'm just sure it's not the guy from Santa Monica that wants to play in front of his home crowd.PedroKsBambino said:Alive!
nighthob said:Not really, it was in the middle of a fluff piece where everyone said nice things. I have no doubts that with cap space and the right situation Boston can sign an A list guy. I'm just sure it's not the guy from Santa Monica that wants to play in front of his home crowd.
Cleveland did nothing but support LeBron and bend over backwards to try to put a team around him. The owners and the fans of the thunder stole a team from another city (Durant was a Sonic), they deserve to have bad things happen to them.Devizier said:God, I would love if Durant comes to Boston after blowing several title runs in Oklahoma City and becomes the league's biggest heel for a year before he wins a title and everyone embraces him again.
In other words, the Lebron James scenario.
That's the sad part, they were trying to assemble an actual NBA team and what they actually put around James was a 19 win team. If there's a city that needs to have its NBA team put out of their misery it's Cleveland.Smokey Joe said:Cleveland did nothing but support LeBron and bend over backwards to try to put a team around him.
He did wax poetic about the Garden, calling it the “Mecca of basketball.”
“If you can’t get up to play in MSG, you may as well go home,” he said.
I said he was a nut because WorldNetDaily sits atop his recommended reading list. His plus-minus methodology may well be sound -- sure, DeAndre Jordan cracks the top 10, but he isn't the first guy to mysteriously shine in +/-, particularly in a limited sample size.bowiac said:FWIW, I don't think he's a nut. I've corresponded with him a bunch, and ASPM is one of the flash points in the sabr-Kevin Love discussions, as it's usually considered the best box score stat in the business. The fact that it rates Love so well is one of the starting points about whether Love is overrated or not.
In other words, if ASPM didn't like Love, there would be a lot less mystery to what's going on.
FWIW, ASPM is not +/-, it's a box score stat. It's just very sophisticated, but ultimately, not +/- based. The name is deceptive that way, which is why he notes "[SIZE=medium]A reminder: ASPM is not Adjusted Plus/Minus. ASPM is a box-score stat and has the limitations thereof."[/SIZE]maufman said:I said he was a nut because WorldNetDaily sits atop his recommended reading list. His plus-minus methodology may well be sound -- sure, DeAndre Jordan cracks the top 10, but he isn't the first guy to mysteriously shine in +/-, particularly in a limited sample size.
Rudy Pemberton said:Rondo is one of the 15-20 best players in the league?
Eastern conference scout: "Three years ago, I was the only scout saying Rondo is overrated, and I was crucified for it. I was saying he was awful. I think he's a selfish player. He's only going to pass it to you if he thinks he can get an assist. I've seen him come out for pregame warmups with his shoes untied shooting lefty foul shots. For him to come out for a game with that attitude makes me question his work ethic. I've never liked his game.
"If you play with Kevin Garnett, Paul Pierce and Ray Allen at close to their peak, they're going to raise everyone's game. Defensively, Rondo's a bit of a gambler, and I don't think his defense is all that. If I was starting a team and had my choice of any point guard, he would be 40th. I mean it. I'd take some backups before him."
Yup. I love a lot of things about Rondo's game, but don't see him as a top 15 to 20 player. It seems to me like the consensus on him is that he is a fine 2nd/3rd piece for a title contender but not a lead dog. That does not jibe with him being in the 15 to 20 range.Grin&MartyBarret said:
I'm not sure I can think of a player in recent memory who opinions vary more widely on than Rondo. Some people are convinced he's a max guy, top 15 type player, and others out there thing he's basically a league average point guard. I mean, Simmons calls him top 15-20, and an Eastern Conference scout anonymously says this:
The 40th thing is obviously hyperbolic, but there really is a huge gap in how people perceive Rondo.
bowiac said:I'm one of the bigger Kevin Love skeptics out there, and even I don't doubt he's worthy of a max deal.
I don't think they should give Rondo the max. The two are unrelated, or maybe even actively a bad mix. I'd want to get Love (if he could be re-signed), and trade Rondo for assets, as I think he's surprisingly easily replaced. I don't think that's super plausible obviously - Love isn't likely to come here without other pieces in place.wutang112878 said:Well please expand on this. From a comparable contract standpoint, yes there are contracts out there that would justify Love getting the max. When I say he and Rondo dont deserve the max, by that I mean through the lens of building a title winning team I dont think they can both have max contracts on your team and you can build a team around them that can win a title.
bowiac said:I don't think they should give Rondo the max. The two are unrelated, or maybe even actively a bad mix. I'd want to get Love (if he could be re-signed), and trade Rondo for assets, as I think he's surprisingly easily replaced. I don't think that's super plausible obviously - Love isn't likely to come here without other pieces in place.
CreightonGubanich said:The problem is, he needs a team built around his particular skill set to really thrive, but he's not quite good enough to justify doing so. I think he'd be a great fit with Kevin Love though. The key would be finding someone to play the 2 to make it all work, a shot creator who could also play off the ball and defend point guards. I don't think Goran Dragic is walking through that door.
Isn't this true of any player other than perhaps LeBron/Durant? They either need a pair of top guys, or they need to be on a team where the depth of their starting 5 is absolutely amazing.wutang112878 said:Do you think you could win a title on a team where Love has a max deal? I really think he would have to be paired with a top 5 player to do it, or be on a team in Indy where the depth of their starting 5 is absolutely amazing. I just think it makes it difficult to build a team around him.
bowiac said:Isn't this true of any player other than perhaps LeBron/Durant? They either need a pair of top guys, or they need to be on a team where the depth of their starting 5 is absolutely amazing.
I mean, are you just saying only those two guys deserve max deals? I'll note, even that's generous, as Durant hasn't won, and LeBron did it with two other top ~12 players.
Other than Pau and Bosh, most of these guys got their deals with their team bidding against nobody. In some cases it's just a single team being dumb (Amar'e), in other cases it's a team with Bird rights giving a guy money just because (Lopez, Joe Johnson, Gordon).wutang112878 said:As for the max deals, I'm saying a fraction of the guys that get max deals actually deserve. Here are the players in bbref's top 30 salaries that dont deserve the max: Amare, Joe Johnson, Pau Gasol, Bosh, Gay, Zach Randolph, Pierce, Boozer, Brook Lopez, Okafor, Eric Gordon, Luol Deng, Tyson Chandler and Danny Granger, thats roughly 50% of them, and those are somewhat crippling deals. So when you hand out one of these deals, you should be really careful and make sure you only give it to guys that really, really deserve it.
Kliq said:To be fair, Pau signed that deal early into the 2009-2010 season. Pau was a double-double machine, was huge in the Lakers in the championship season and really only fell apart because the Lakers hired the wrong coach twice and Kobe got hurt. Not really his fault.
Also, the guys that got maxed deals were hardly on the level that Love is right now. Really only Pau and Bosh were as good as Love is right now when they signed. It just goes to show that way too many people get max deals.
bowiac said:Other than Pau and Bosh, most of these guys got their deals with their team bidding against nobody. In some cases it's just a single team being dumb (Amar'e), in other cases it's a team with Bird rights giving a guy money just because (Lopez, Joe Johnson, Gordon).
Like I said before, I'm not a huge Love fan (i.e. I think he's like the 10th best player), but Kliq is right that he's better than most of these guys were they signed their deals.
I just meant that Love is closer to being a "feeding frenzy" max guy like LeBron or Dwight Howard (probably the best comp I have for him) than being a max guy "by default" like Joe Johnson.wutang112878 said:My only point is that when max deals are given out, it seems only half the time it was justified. I dont think that conflicts with anything you just said