Andrew Sharp: What's Wrong with Kevin Love?

Checking in on an old friend, Andrew Sharp of SI.com is just as perplexed about what has happened to Kevin Love in this year’s NBA Finals.

The former Timberwolves forward, who averaged 26 points, 12.5 rebounds and 4.5 assists in his final season in Minnesota, is averaging 8.8 points and six rebounds in the Finals so far.

It’s been hard to watch, and it keeps getting worse,” writes Sharp. “A concussion in Game 2 gave way to a full-on disappearance in Game 5, with two points and threest [sic] rebounds in 33 minutes. What is happening here?”

Sharp has five theories:

No. 1: He’s not terrible, but the Cavs have never been a great fit.  

What made Love great in Minnesota was his ability to score from inside and outside,” he writes. “The problem in Cleveland is that many of those skills have suffered from atrophy, because he spends most of his time floating around the perimeter.”

Basically LeBron James is better suited to do a lot of the things Love did as an inside-outside player in Minnesota, and because Love is forced to float around the perimeter, he’s less able to grab rebounds at the rate he used to.

No. 2: He’s not as healthy as he was in Minnesota. 

“There were rumors that Love’s transition in Cleveland was hampered by back problems that lingered through much of last year,” he writes. “He sat out certain games for rest, missed time after aggravating his back and finished the season with a separated shoulder and off–season surgery.

No. 3: The Warriors are a nightmare matchup.

“It turns out the Thunder series was just the worst matchup possible for Draymond [Green],” he writes.

“That same logic seems like the most obvious explanation for Love against the Warriors. Even before this series began, people were worried about how he’d fit. Golden State is uniquely positioned to torture him on defense, they are fast and strong enough to guard him inside and outside, and it’s all mushroomed into a cloud of mental struggles that have compounded everything.”

No. 4: He was always overrated, and the Finals have exposed him once and for all. 

This, in some odd ways, might be most satisfactory to Wolves fans. Basically, Love was a stat-stuffer who cannot deliver when it counts.

Love is weak defensively during an era in which the best teams in the league are better than ever at finding weak links and exploiting them,” writes Sharp. “Maybe that’s not his fault, but it’s literally a problem that becomes twice as obvious on a good team. Competing for a title, the games against the best teams are the only ones that matter.”

No. 5: Hold on, he’s actually playing fine. 

“LeBron and Kyrie were so good in Game 5 that Love didn’t need to score more than two points,” he writes.

“He could’ve grabbed more than three rebounds—especially with Draymond and Bogut gone—but he spent the entire game on the perimeter, spacing the floor while his teammates carved up Marreese Speights and Steph Curry.

“His defense will never be dominant, but all things considered, he’s held up better than most people expected in this series. Love isn’t dominating, but the Cavs are winning, and that’s all that matters.”

We’ll see what happens with Love going forward, but as it stands right now it looks like Minnesota got the better end of the deal given how Andrew Wiggins has played in the first two years of his career.

[Sports Illustrated]

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