(OT) Does Kevin Love have any upside potential?

Love is soft both physically and emotionally. He is easily taken off his game. He pouts and sulks when things aren’t going his way. These are attributes which are absolutely deadly when it comes to the NBA. If he can toughen up emotionally and accept his NBA mediocrity, then he’ll be alright and play a few years in the league, maybe ten years. But he’ll never be a star. Just a serviceable backup.

http://insider.espn.go.com/nba/draft2008/insider/columns/story?columnist=ford_chad&page=DraftWatch-080516&action=login&appRedirect=http%3a%2f%2finsider.espn.go.com%2fnba%2fdraft2008%2finsider%2fcolumns%2fstory%3fcolumnist%3dford_chad%26page%3dDraftWatch-080516

He is too slow for the NBA. If he gets quicker by losing weight, he will disappear at his position. “D’d” if you do, “D’d” if you don’t. I am not saying he can not make a career in the NBA, but I do not see him as ever being dominant.

Zach is an effective NBA player despite his physical limitations (he can’t jump over the free-throw stripe). Where Zach gets into trouble is effort and somewhat selfish play—I’ll leave the off-court stuff alone.

Zach’s main gifts are a) he’s an excellent halfcourt scorer who commands a double-team when he catches the ball, and b) he’s a good rebounder, especially for a guy who can’t jump.

Zach’s main liabilities are a) he’s a poor passer, who when the double-team does come, will often force up a bad shot or turn the ball over, and b) he doesn’t bother to try on defense.

If Zach’s only problem were a), and he at least played mediocre defense (not being able to stop his man one-on-one in most situations, but at least making an effort to stay and front and rotate), he’d probably be an All-Star. The bad passing from a frontcourt player, a team can live with—many worse ballhogs have won titles in this league, and are in the hall of fame. (Moses Malone is a fine example).

But the problem with Zach, and a big reason the Blazers were so happy to unload him, and a big reason the Knicks are rumored to be trying to unload him, is that his defense isn’t merely mediocre, it’s terrible. He’s not just an often-abused-by-the-man-he’s-guarding bad defender, he’s a sabotages-the-entire-defensive-scheme bad defender. He doesn’t bother to rotate on D. If he’s on the weak side of the court, his team simply cannot double-team the ball—he won’t move to the strong side to cover the double-teamer’s man. He just won’t. For double-teaming to work properly, the defense has to rotate to ensure that the guy who isn’t being guarded can’t be easily reached with a single pass; otherwise it’s easy points. With Zach on the floor, the double-team comes, and the passer has an easy look to someone cutting to the hoop for a dunk.

Which brings us to young Kevin Love. Love has shown good rebounding skill at the college level, it is unknown whether that will translate to the NBA (where he will be facing bigger, faster, and stronger opponents). But Z-bo shows that it isn’t out of the question; Love is a better athlete than Zach. Love, unlike Zach, is regarded as an excellent passer. And while he ain’t Garnett or Duncan and will never be, he does appear to at least try on defense.

So… Kevin Love could conceivably be an All-Star in this league. He could conceivably become a scorer and rebounder on par with Z-Bo, and without Zach’s two huge liabilities. But that’s a big “could”—most unatthletic 6’9 players don’t become borderline All-Stars and 20/10 guys in the NBA; most find themselves as off-the-bench beef, whose job it is to box out, get boards and the occasional gimme shot, and not screw up while the star is on the bench. And you don’t pick at #13 looking for that sort of role player, at least not unless you are Isiah Thomas. Guys who do what Zach does are the exception, not the rule.

His passing and able to shoot the NBA 3 will be sexy off the bench. I don’t really see him as a starter though.

but Oakley couldn’t jump, and he was almost always valuable.

I was thinking of this more as a post at whether kevin love could ever get better than he is right now. All of our young players have tremendous upside, and need to work on their consistency or shot selection, and their gifts are their athletic abilities. Whereas Love already has all of those things our players need to work on, can he get any better?

I would push the case for no, Love is right now as good as he ever could possibly be. He can’t grow any bigger, he can’t reshape his bone structure so that he is built like Zach, he can’t magically get jumping ability. He’s been working out and using weights his entire life, its not like the NBA’s trainers are that much better than Nike’s. His ceilling isn’t zach randolph, i would say his ceilling is where he is right now. i honestly think that their is no aspect of his game that is deficient that can be coached and improved upon. What you get when you draft him is exactly what he is. Other players like Beasley or Danilo can get better and improve upon their abilities, making them in time better players, personally the only way i take Kevin Love is if I think he’s better right now, than other players in the draft will be in three years.

. . . is it really DOES offset the tendency to be “outmuscled”.
Good footwork = getting inside position at all times, both posting up on offense
and getting position for a rebound, on both ends of the floor.
A player who can always get positional advantage over his man before the ball comes to the paint
is a player that is difficult to “outmuscle”, even when matched against stronger players.

Personally, I’m not big on KLUV, but I see the argument for “positioning > brute strength”.

But I don’t think this was off-topic at all. If teams don’t like him, he could fall down to #13 as easily as anyone else.

Off topic is something more like “We’re Doing Mad Libs Today!” or “Who Else Has an iPhone?” Or something that really can’t be tied to basketball. I think someone should do the Mad Libs thing, though. Seriously.