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When you ask basketball fans if Los Angeles Clippers forward Blake Griffin is worth a max contract, the response is always an instant “yes.”
Then why, after putting up numbers we haven’t seen since Tim Duncan and Kevin Garnett were in their prime, is Minnesota Timberwolves forward Kevin Love not worth a five-year, $80 million deal?
It’s bizarre that Love and Griffin are going to be compared to each other for the rest of their careers despite their opposite styles of play.
(Quick tangent: Portland Trailblazers forward LaMarcus Aldridge merits mention in this conversation, if only to compare him — as the new Chris Webber — with Griffin and Love, the updated Garnett and Duncan. He is a great forward but not quite on par with Love and Griffin.)
Back to Love getting none of his namesake, he recently accepted — albeit grudgingly — a four-year, $62 million contract extension with the T-Wolves, with a player option after his third season.
Love pushed for the opt-out clause after Minnesota’s refusal to guarantee a fifth year, à la the Thunder’s five-year extension of point guard Russell Westbrook’s contract.
Apparently, the Timberwolves’ brass were reluctant to offer the designated player spot to Love — only one player can have a five-year extension — in case they need that opening for first-year guard Ricky Rubio.
You have got to be kidding me.
No disrespect to Rubio — he could very likely earn the right to a five-year extension. But Minnesota is basically choosing a rookie who has played in fewer than 20 good games over a power forward revolutionizing his position.
If you think revolutionizing is too strong a word, consider this: When thinking of players who have played the way Griffin does, you can rattle off a list of dozens of names ranging from Shawn Kemp to Larry Johnson.
Who has ever played like Love?
On any given night, he can give you 30 points, 20 rebounds — or 30-30, which he did last season — and routinely delivers 20 points and 15 rebounds, which was his average last season.
Did I mention the 3s? Love makes two of those per game, shooting 40 percent from beyond the arc, good for fourth-best at his position.
When trying to find a forward with the same unique combination of scoring, rebounding and 3-point shooting, I could only find Larry Legend himself.
As big a Love fan as I am, even I am not going to compare him to Bird. Bird’s playmaking ability throughout his career was at levels Love will never reach. But it’s not hard to believe that Love’s career numbers could top Bird’s total of 24 points per game, 10 rebounds per game and a 3-point field goal percentage of 37.6 percent.
Moreover, take a second to compare facial hair. That’s right, Love wins by a landslide.
When looking at their career numbers next to each other, Griffin and Love match up well. For every 36 minutes, Griffin has scored 21 points to Love’s 18, while Love has grabbed 14 rebounds every 36 minutes compared to Griffin’s 11 and a half. Griffin dishes out one more assist per game but is a non-factor from beyond the arc.
It’s when you dig deeper into the stats that you will find Love’s brilliance. Love leads his position in rebound-rate at over 27 percent, which measures the percentage of total missed shots a certain player rebounds.
While outshining both Aldridge and Griffin in many statistical categories, he sits behind both of them in 2011-12 in usage rate, which measures the number of possessions a player uses for every 40 minutes of playing time.
Love’s player efficiency rating, which measures the overall rating of a player’s per-minute production, is 25.04, behind such superstars as LeBron James, Kevin Durant and Kobe Bryant. And it is only those three players who sit in front of Love in estimated wins added, which puts a number on the amount of wins a player adds over a “replacement player.”
In basketball, the estimated price for a win is $2 million. Last season, Love finished with 16.7 EWA and is projected to come close to eclipsing that total in a shortened 66-game season.
While Griffin was right behind Love last season with 16.1 EWA, Love’s total of 5.1 thus far this season is more than two points over Griffin’s total.
While the Timberwolves are certainly a team on the rise with some good pieces in place, they had better hope they improve more quickly than the learning curve for young teams suggests. Otherwise Love will bolt for Los Angeles like his favorite childhood team did more than 50 years ago.
And if Love still has his burly beard if and when that happens, he will look just as out of place in Hollywood as a team called the Lakers does.
Bangor Daily News