And surprising, at 19, Kevin Love is learning new things.

I want to read every possible juicy tidbit of info on Jarryd and LMA.

check out this web site
http://www.pnsn.org/recenteqs/latest.htm

It’s refreshing. The kid hasn’t gotten the art of the sports cliche down yet. He’ll get there, thanks to the Rasheed Wallace Correspondance Course for rookies. Just repeat after ‘Sheed, “Both teams played hard.”

Provided his off-court behavior is not sleazy, they will only care about what he does on the court. And I don’t know why it surprises anyone that a 19-year old might not be worldly-wise. If they’ve had a middle-class or more affluent upbringing, most kids that age have not had to learn how to fend for themselves, either by balancing a checkbook (let alone establishing an investment portfolio), or by cooking anything more complicated than mac ‘n’ cheese.

I saw a blurb about that when Love was playing or getting drafted or sumthin’, and I missed what it said.

I like the Pet Sounds album, I don’t wanna start hating it but… (gulp!)

...Mortimer

blake and rex on the floor would make rex the scorer and satisfy his hunger for points, wouldn’t read much into that otherwise.

I could care less about the tax write off thing—it’s just a kid repeating what someone just told him as a benefit economically for having a cook, and it’s funny. It’s cute. If we’re bugged by that, we’re overanalyzing the situation and looking for something to be bugged by.

15% body fat and being visibly kinda chubby is bad for an NBA player who is already not a 10th level master athlete. He already has troubles getting up n’ down the court and is small for his position and slow as well—you add kinda chubby to the mix, and it opens up a whole new world of prospective problems with his career.

If a huge guy like Shaq has 15-20% body fat, it for sure isn’t healthy and bad for every joint in his body BUT he’s so big he can use it to his advantage. If Love has that body fat percentage, it makes an already slow-n-small player even slower and less athletic.

He’s gonna be crafty as all git out, but he’ll need to get every ounce out of his athleticism that he can to play PF in the NBA.

I don’t trust undersized shooting guards forced to play PG because they are short, I don’t trust chubby players, and I don’t trust white big men taken in the lottery. Love is sorta kinda two out of my 3 things I don’t trust, but I dunno if he counts as a big man since he’s only 6’8”. Like the writer of the SI article says, his pump fakes work on the raw athletes of summer league and even a lot of big men defenders in the NBA—they’re nice moves. But against people who know how to stay home or know they can use their superior length and size to never have to even attempt to bite on a fake? It just won’t work unless he had better size.

Kevin McHale had a very good career with an amazing collection of post fakes and moves. He also was what, 6’11” and lanky as hell? He could turn after a fake and flip the ball in, his arm outstretched over the also-lanky defender. Can Kevin Love do that? He might have the moves, but he is definitely small. You put him at the high post like we’ll have LMA with Oden, and have him do nice passes from the top of the key to Jefferson and others, but will he be able to score from there by driving or shooting over his defender?

I just don’t think he’ll translate well, but he’ll do a lot of cool passes and has fundamentals that will overcome his lack of athleticism and body that, for whatever reason, has made him non-conditioned thus far. Without the body for his position, he has a huge uphill battle to be worth what OJ Mayo or anyone else they could have taken at #3 is worth.

Body fat and being in shape is a huge deal in a game where you run up and down a court and use all of your muscle to stop bigger/faster/stronger defenders from using all of their muscle and speed on you for 30+ minutes a night.

Mortimer

I think he will be fine as an NBA player. Not amazing, but in the “Brad Miller or better” category with his outlet passes, intensity and nice scoring ability. The jokes just stem from his widely reported struggles to loose weight, and it can definitely be an issue since quick movement and ideally explosiveness is a key element in pro basketball. At pre-draft camp, he was down to 12.9 body fat. It shows that he has worked on himself, but for a professional athlete everyone agrees that’s still not good. In fact it ranks him ca. in the bottom 30 of all players catalogued in the DraftExpress measurements database (data in this category mostly from the last five years).

http://www.draftexpress.com/nba-pre-draft-measurements/measurements.php?page=&year=All&sort2=DESC&draft=0&pos=0&sort=7

Some of the players scoring around him or even worse turned out fine quickly, e.g. Chris Kaman who today is considered strong and has quick foot speed, or Nick Collison. Or McRoberst, for those keeping score at home. ;-) Yet there are also examples like Mike Sweetney or Matt Bonner.

Probably it’s not a good indicator of NBA success, but it’s a fundamental since players are at least expected to be in shape before coaches let them step on the court in the season. So he definitely should hire a nutritionist / cook to help him with eating healthy. Nothing to say against that. Shaq has one if I remember his Cribs episode correctly. A lot of athletes do. His college should already have provided athletes like him with a good meal plan.