Change of Address for Kevin Love - How About Causeway Street?
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You are missing the point. By Love giving Minnesota a short list of teams he'd be willing to be traded to he's essentially saying that he would accept the max from that team. Not everything has to be so black and white in a league run by power agents and handshake deals.MakMan44 said:
Love is obviously not the player that Bird is, but he is every bit "a pretty good defender" that Bird was. They both kind of worked hard, but kind of sucked at most things besides a few extraordinary traits. Love - rebounding, Bird - free safety defense.Cellar-Door said:
What I originally quoted, "why not go get Love or another big target next summer and keep your assets?" sounded like you were suggesting the Celtics sign him when he hit UFA instead of trading for him and signing him to the max after next season.HomeRunBaker said:
That wasn't me. Top tier FA rarely hit UFA as the Power Brokers working these deals have their clients in a place where they can sign the max deal as to not leave any money on the table. That is their job, it's why the player hires them.MakMan44 said:
Brickowski said:
Holy shit, your axe to grind with Howard is hilarious. Yes, they lost. It's the first year that team was playing together. Very few superstars have immediately success when they first play together.
We're talking about 2 of the 15 (or 20, but I'll say 15) players in the NBA playing together. They're going to get REALLY good.
Miami didn't win in their first year as they needed time to gel and fill the holes around The Big Three (Chalmers was a rookie that year, Ray Allen, BirdMan, Cole).CaptainLaddie said:
Boston took 7 games to get by the first two rounds.....while needing Sam Cassell's corpse to save us from losing G1 at home vs the Cavs then replaced Rondo in the 1st quarter of G2 when we were down double digits to do same. Then PJ Brown bailed us out with that jumper. Either of those two things don't occur we don't win a Championship in our Big Three era.
Two things that don't win in this league......youth and teams with large offseason roster turnover.
CaptainLaddie said:
I also think Harden is overrated (he gives back on defense a huge chunk of what he gives you on offense, and I think he's too predictable to be the #1 offensive guy on a title contending team, his flaws come out more when playing the same team a bunch of times in a row in a playoff series), but more importantly I think Chandler Parsons has been a crucial part of that team the last two seasons and he is only under contract for one more season.
Also, the West is so loaded that 2 of the top 20 guys doesn't even mean you're likely to get out of the first round. SA, OKC, LAC, POR (also with two top 20 guys in Aldridge and Lillard), MEM, GSW, an up and coming PHX team. If Morey could add Love to Howard and Harden, their flaws of all three would become much less apparent and with a few more quality contributors (a PG specifically), they could be very dangerous. That's a lot easier said than done.
mcpickl said:
I think it comes down to you valuing the 4 decent jelly munchkins over the vastly superior and hard to find vanilla creme filled donut. Neither of our assertions are outlandish, its just slightly different philosophies on roster construction.
To your last question, if ultimately you want Love anyway why risk losing him to someone else and just go get him this year? And as for another big target, I think its pretty rare that players of Love's caliber become available so I would pounce on this opportunity ASAP.
Cellar-Door said:
Lets also remember when he won that first title Bird was the PF, Max was the SF and Bird did have the Chief. Which is what I think could make things work for Love, get him a great defensive presence C and that might be enough to compensate for his lack of great rim protection.
On specific traits, yeah I'm comparing him to the legend. The same way Tommy compared Stiemsma to Russell because both would anticipate a block, wait until the instant their opponent released the ball and then immediately pounce and had the quick hop type skills to do it. On Love & Larry, both are great passers to the point that they make their teammates much better by giving them easy opportunities to the point that it motivates their teammates to constantly move on offense. At least that should be happening for Love, but the level of crappy teammates he has right now might be too basketball stupid to get that but under Stevens and his style of offense I am confident that this would happen. And with their individual scoring offense both are nightmare match ups. Larry could hit 3s, was savvy enough to get by his man off the dribble just enough to get off running jumpers and if you tried to match up against him with a smaller player he could take them down low and abuse them. Love can take advantage of smaller players down low, with a bigger player he can face them up and use his quickness to get by them and he stretches your defense and his defender by hitting 3s. You cant really crowd, sag, go small or go big on either of them because they still have something they can take advantage of in any of those combinations of strategies. Love obviously isnt on the Legends level, but yeah I'm absolutely going to argue that they have some similar traits.
Cellar-Door said:
What players, more suitable than Kevin Love to build a team around, do you see becoming available in the next couple of years that the Celtics have a reasonable shot at acquiring? I'm asking because Love is, by any measure, one of the top 15-20 players in the NBA. Many would put him closer to the top 5, although that's certainly up for debate. None of the Celtics draft picks project to yield such a player without enormous lottery luck that Ainge shouldn't be planning on. I'm not one of those that claims free agents will never sign in Boston, but no free agent better than Love is signing anywhere without a few pieces in place. I think we can rule out LeBron in that case. Bosh is an offense only PF, and a lesser player than Love. Same for Anthony. As for trades, I guess we could wait to see if Steph Curry gets fed up with the situation in Golden State? I love Curry, but he suffers from some of the same problems as Love in my opinion.
And what is it about offense-first power forwards that are tough to build around, specifically? Rim protection is important, but this isn't 1984. You really only need one big to protect the rim, and those guys can be acquired for reasonable cost (Robin Lopez, Asik, Sanders, to name a few). What is important in today's NBA is floor spacing, and Kevin Love is one of the best in the NBA in terms of bending a defense away from where they want to be. And, we have a pretty recent example of a championship team being built around an offense-first power forward in Dallas.
Edit: I can see the argument that spending the assets necessary to acquire Love would leave the Celtics in a position where they wouldn't be able to get the remaining pieces to put them over the top, and maybe that's what you're saying. I don't necessarily agree, but it makes sense. That's a different argument than saying that Love isn't good enough to be the centerpiece, and the Celtics need to acquire a better player than Love to build around. I just don't see that player becoming available, and the likelihood of drafting one is so low as to be a nonstarter for planning purposes.
The C's were a better team with more building blocks and major trade assets in 2006.
They had the #5, Al Jefferson, Pierce, a young and unproven Rondo, and a handful of throw in types.
What they have now is a shitload of picks, Rondo (< 2006 Pierce), Sullinger and Olynyk (neither having the trade value of 2006 Big Al).
I think it's a legit concern that the C's may not have the assets to acquire Love and build a team around him.
Maybe it is too early, and Danny needs to hit on a couple of those picks to add core players and/or trade assets.
On the other hand, opportunities to add a player of Love's caliber are not that common.
They had the #5, Al Jefferson, Pierce, a young and unproven Rondo, and a handful of throw in types.
What they have now is a shitload of picks, Rondo (< 2006 Pierce), Sullinger and Olynyk (neither having the trade value of 2006 Big Al).
I think it's a legit concern that the C's may not have the assets to acquire Love and build a team around him.
Maybe it is too early, and Danny needs to hit on a couple of those picks to add core players and/or trade assets.
On the other hand, opportunities to add a player of Love's caliber are not that common.
Cellar-Door said:
People keep saying this, and even Simmons suggested an insane 4 first round picks, but the cost won't end up that high.
Look at the cost to acquire other stars recently:
James Harden went for Martin, Lamb and two firsts. Chris Paul went for Eric Gordon, Aminu, Kaman, and an unprotected first. Carmelo netted Gallinari, Chandler, Felton, Mozgov a first and a swap of firsts. Only Dwight Howard resulted in a package anywhere close to what Simmons/others are suggesting. Orlando got Harkless, Vucevic, Afflalo, Harrington, Eyenga, McRoberts, and 3 first rounders. And Howard's behavior since then has basically ruined every other franchise's chances of getting a return like that again.
Also worth mentioning in these discussions: the league's tax line is rising rapidly. Next year it's at 77 million, and it's projected to be at 81 million the year following that. That provides a lot of space between the cap and tax for teams to operate.
Grin&MartyBarret said:
Brickowski said:
The cap's projected to rise $5 million in each of the next two years. Those are the league's numbers, according to Zach Lowe. So my 70 million dollar estimate is actually conservative.
So basically, to create cap issues for a Celtics team with Love you insisted I run the numbers after a Rondo extension and Green opting in, both things that are far from certain, and I'd go so far as to say are unlikely. Bottom line is that--at most--C's would be looking at about $50 million in committed salary in a year that the cap will be at $70 or $71 million dollars. And that's before you factor in that they could cut & stretch Wallace and the likelyhood of Green opting out. Even if you gave Rondo the max--which nobody this side of James Dolan thinks is a good idea--the Celtics could very easily find themselves with about 30 million dollars in space next summer and 40 million dollars to maneuver with prior to the tax kicking in.
Sure they are. Players of Love's caliber (or better) are available via trade or free agency almost every year--and sometimes more than one. In fact, just about every championship team in the last 20 years has been built by adding key free agents (or players via trade) to an existing core of quality players who were drafted. The Lakers did it twice, by adding Shaq, and then Gasol, to a drafted star (Kobe, who BTW was a #13 pick). So did the Heat, first by adding Shaq, and a few years later LeBron and Bosh, to the star they drafted (Wade). Boston did it in 2007, Detroit did it in 2004 by acquiring Sheed in midseason (in a deal facilitated by Ainge) to complement draftees like Prince and Hamilton and Billups, who was acquired as a free agent in 2002. The list goes on.
The only exception is the Spurs. All of their key players (Robinson, Duncan, Parker, Ginobili) were drafted.
Sure under the right conditions. Those would be (1) Ainge hits on at least one of the 2014 picks to get a cost-controlled starting caliber player, (2) he either keeps Rondo on a long term deal or trades him for equivalent value, (3) Sullinger, after moving to his natural pf position, doesn't blow up and become an all star, and (4)the price for Love is right. In particular, I would not want to relinquish any draft pick that might give me a 10% or better shot at Jahlil Okafor or an equivalent "can't miss" player.
The idea is to have an established base on which to build before you add that 20M player who limits your financial flexibility going forward.
Brickowski said:
So before you acquire a cornerstone player, you have to draft one? What happens when you believe, like Danny Ainge does, that there are no cornerstone players in this draft? You just wait indefinitely until you can draft one? You can't trade for a star until you have a star? In all of those examples you cited, only the Kobe/Shaq example involves a team that acquired their 'complimentary' stars while the one they drafted was on a rookie deal.
Well it certainly helps to draft one, but I said "starting caliber" not "cornerstone." But there has to be a reasonable baseline level of talent first.
Look at it another way. Let's suppose Love is willing to sign a max 5-year, 106M deal (or whatever the max deal is). How long to you want to pay 20M a year to Love on a team that isn't a contender? Two years? Three years? Presumably to become a contender you have to hit on your first rounders in 2016 and 2017 (at least the ones you have left after acquiring Love), and that's just as much of a crapshoot, since after adding Love you'll be picking at No. 10 or later, not in the top ten.
Let me add that the worst possible result is to acquire Love on a long term deal and then be stuck in limbo (35-45 wins each year) for the duration of his contract, and then having to worry whether he'll exercise his ETO (he'll certainly insist on getting one in any long-term contract with the Celtics or anyone else).
Brickowski said:
Let's say you can add Marc Gasol and Arron Afflalo in free agency the next year? Or Gasol and Dragic? Or Hibbert, Dragic and Gerald Henderson? Or let's say you add just Gasol and trade one of your firsts and Olynyk or whoever for Ty Lawson? Like you said, stars are available all the time. There are countless ways to build a contender. After acquiring Love, the Celtics could be a contender a year later. Is it guaranteed? No. But under your proposal, it's guaranteed they aren't a contender for at least that long.
Yep, my proposal is to wait one more year before acquiring Love or another all-star caliber player.
If you could acquire Love on a max free agent deal, like the one Dwight Howard got, that would be ideal. Then Ainge gets to keep his picks.
If you could acquire Love on a max free agent deal, like the one Dwight Howard got, that would be ideal. Then Ainge gets to keep his picks.
Brickowski said:
And if neither of your first round picks this year turn into good enough players to attract that free agent, you're screwed.
Brickowski said:
I'm coming around to this idea. Think of this from Love's perspective. Let's assume he doesn't sign an extension wherever he goes because he wants to see the direction of the team before he commits (call it the Deron Williams theory). Assume it takes at least Sullinger/6/17 to get the deal done. Which team would you rather sign with after 2015 season if you are Kevin Love?
Rondo?/Wallace/Green/Love/Olynyk
or
Rondo?/Lavine/Gordon/Love/Sullinger
At that point you could even package Sullinger with the 2 2015 number 1s to pick up disgruntled FA-to-be du jour. All while keeping the Brooklyn picks.
Vegas Sox Fan said:
One of the other 29 teams. Unless he loves playing on teams with 3 power forwards.
MakMan44 said:
Seriously.
To some extent, this is an issue of semantics, but regardless, this really should be the last time anybody has to say this in this thread: there is a 0% chance Love's signing an extension. He'll hit free agency one way or another. But when he does, he's very likely to re-sign with the team he was traded to. The CBA would cost him a ton of money if he signed elsewhere. He's going to push his way to a team he wants to play for and sign there after opting out, the same way Carmelo and Paul did.
Rudy Pemberton said:
Money. If he can get the bigger max deal from an organization that he feels is capable of building a contender around him, he'll accept a trade to said organization. If not, and he reaches free agency, he's a Laker. The only reason he's not a Laker either way is because he's cognizant of the fact that the Lakers don't have a good enough package to offer for him without setting Minnesota back (another) decade.
Edit: I should also add, that Sullinger and Love can't play with each other. I'm not sure he and Gordon can, either. I don't think either of those guys move the needle much. Boston's appeal to Love is because of a) their history b) Danny Ainge c) the fact that one year after acquiring him they could pair him with multiple free agents of a caliber he never played with in Minnesota.
This seems somewhat contradictory to me. On the one hand, you think no way Love stays with the Timberwolves, and that he'd be willing to walk away from the extra money the Timberwolves could offer him relative to another team. On the other hand, if he gets traded somewhere else, he's very likely to re-sign, cause he's not willing to walk away from the extra money.Grin&MartyBarret said:
I understand you're suggesting a Carmelo scenario, where he forces a trade to the team he wants to play for, and then re-signs there, but it seems to me there's a real chance Love does what Dwight did. Force a trade to the team he wants to play for, but without a handshake deal to resign. Wait and see then the direction of the team, and and weigh his options going forward. That's also effectively what Paul did. He and Howard just reached different decisions.
That's pure speculation. Yeah, they have duplicative skills, but so what?
It's unlikely that Love will hit free agency and not sign with the team that traded for him, but not impossible.
Brickowski said:
Should I just quote the 65 times in this thread you've talked about Love's defense and how you need to put an elite rim protector next to him, or what?
bowiac said:
It doesn't seem, to me at least, that there's any chance Love stays in Minnesota. He's fed up with the team, their owner, and the incompetent management and has made it clear he's going elsewhere in a year. The timing of that isn't coincidental. He's made his intentions known specifically to force a trade, and I think the money has a lot to do with it. Otherwise, why not just wait a year and sign in LA, which everybody assumes to be his first choice?
I think Love wants the extra money AND to be part of a good organization. He realizes that's an unlikely combination in LA, and has opened himself up to other options. Maybe he pulls a Dwight, but personally I think any player who paid attention to the damage Howard did to his "brand" over the last couple of years is going to be very hesitant to follow in his footsteps.
That's a red herring. Maybe Sullinger comes off the bench as the third big man and plays when Love is on the bench. Is Love going to play 48 minutes? Or maybe the Celtics trade Sullinger to acquire other assets after acquiring Love as a FA.
I can easily see a scenario where Love goes to a team like Golden State. The players, especially the ones loyal to Mark Jackson, don't get along with Kerr, Bogut gets hurt again, Curry asks to be traded and the whole thing falls apart. Meanwhile, Kobe retires (or gets hurt again), Byron Scott or Dunleavy (or whomever Kupchak hires) doesn't work out and the Lakers a mess.
At that point Love may decide to pick the team with the most talent and with the cap space to give him the max.
That's a lot of "ifs" Brick. Some of them are likely to happen, sure, but all of them happening and then Love deciding to sign with the Celtics seems more unlikely than you'd admit. It seems silly to forgo on a deal just to keep your assets and then just hope he falls into your lap.
Brickowski said:
We were just using the word "with" differently. Sure, Sullinger could come off the bench on a team with Love. I just meant that, defensively, you couldn't play them together.
You could, but it might get ugly unless one or both of them significantly improves as a defender.
Grin&MartyBarret said:
It's very unlikely that you can land a second superstar with those assets, though. We will be forced to make some kind of panic move like the Rondo + firsts for Asik and Lin deal that Bill Simmons suggested in his article on Love's potential suitors.
Also, if they can turn those assets into a superstar, why don't they just acquire Love with those assets via a three way trade?
It's unlikely that a superstar would sign a max contract to play alongside Kevin Love? Why?moly99 said:
Who knows? Suppose you have Love, Rondo and another superstar two years from now. The questions is whether or not you would then be able to put a contending team together around those three without the cost controlled good young players that you don't have because you traded away all of your picks to get Love and this hypothetical third star.
But not the question I just asked, or the one that Moly posed. Just another question, founded on a new premise. I don't know the answer to that question: what I do know is that that's a much, much, much better problem to have than trying to figure out where to get your first all-star.Brickowski said:
The biggest problem is trying to figure out which star at what price, assuming you haven't been able to draft one.
Grin&MartyBarret said:
I don't want to be rude, but that's a strategy for very impatient people and New Yorkers. Is there a chance Melo would sign with us in free agency if we trade for Love? Sure. But it's not high enough to bet our future on it, and that would require us to dump quite a bit of salary, IIRC.
Our chances of signing a premier free agent don't seem any worse in 2015 after stockpiling quality young players and improving our chances of a good pick in that year's draft than they are now. The reason some people want to make a move as soon as possible is that they don't want to have to sit through another losing season next year.
I definitely don't want to gamble that a max free agent would sign to play with the celtics rather than re-sign with his current team for more. Sure it could happen, but not a viable strategy IMHO. Simple reason: it's never happened. Sure you could argue that the ~30 years of history is SSS (debatable), but then one also has to ignore the corroborating evidence that numerous warm weather & no local tax teams have succesfully lured max free agents.
Carmelo is a CAA client who represents around 70 NBA players and I don't believe that Ainge has ever signed or negotiated a trade for a CAA client. There is less than zero chance (or zero) that Carmelo is guided to Boston by Worldwide Wes or Leon Rose since they don't appear to deal with Ainge at all.moly99 said:
We finally have the chance to acquire a Top-20 player not named Garnett......these opportunities don't occur with top tier or second-tier guys agreeing to play in Boston. We had to acquire a 2nd HOFer to convince KG and now with Love we may not even have to make pre-arranged trades prior to getting him......and it isn't good enough? It could be awhile before a player of Love's caliber at his age is open to come here. The time to strike is now......I think Ainge knows this too. It's why he's purposely never been below the salary cap as he always stockpiles large expiring or soon to be expiring contracts to get deals done.
HomeRunBaker said:
Love on his own does nothing for us. We need two stars, and while we have a ton of draft picks in the next several years, the only ones likely to yield a top 30 player are our own . . . if we stay bad. Trading the sixth pick and more for Love still leaves us short one star player with no likely means of adding one.
I'm done with this discussion. These same points have been made over and over again.
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