Posted 09/20/2012 5:42 PM

1. Kevin Love, Minnesota Timberwolves

Credentials: 26.0 points, 13.0 rebounds, 37.2 percent 3-point shooting, 8.4 free-throws per game.

The skinny: Timberwolves coach Rick Adelman really uncorked Love as a scorer last year, and the result was somewhat less efficient shooting but 26.0 points per game. It is likely that Love will regain his efficiency this year—nearly everyone was a little off last year in the wake of the lockout—and in the process, Love will go from breakout star to legitimate MVP candidate.

Scouting view: “He has earned the top spot among power forwards. He needs to get his team to take that next step, but if they’re healthy, he is on the verge of that. For a guy who is 24, he is going to a lot of fun to watch in the next five-to-10 years.”

Posted 09/20/2012 5:44 PM

3. Blake Griffin4. Dirk Nowitzki5. Pau Gasol
6. Tim Duncan7. Josh Smith8. Paul Millsap9. Zach Randolph10. Amare Stoudemire

Posted 09/23/2012 12:50 PM

Even though I'd much rather have LaMarcus on my team than Kevin Love, I'm guessing the rebounding and 3pt shooting is what pushes Love over the top, which is kinda hard to argue with.

I'm just so excited that LA outranks Blake Griffin. FINALLY the NBA media is coming to its senses.

Posted 09/24/2012 12:42 AM

Stoked for LaMarcus!

BUT, gotta say this about all the Kevin Love hype (yes he deserves hype more than Blake Griffin, but it's still overhype!):

2 years ago, when he had his "breakout season", he was given WAY to much credit, since it was largely due to stat-padding that he set any sort of streaks or records. In games even before the all-star break, Love would hit the bench within minutes of reaching his double-double mark. And of course, who else on that team was going to have the ball when he was on the floor? Rubio wasn't there yet, and Beasley was playing better than his next year but was not the player to structure offense around by any stretch of the imagination. So literally everything went through KLove. Not saying that makes him an automatic double-double machine, but it's not nearly as impressive as a player doing it on almost ANY other team.

Last year, yes, he showed that he is indeed a legit threat... on a team with no other real scoring threats (who else does the offense go through: Injured Barea? Injured Beasley? Martell Webster?). Seriously, last year Love made 474 FG's, and the next closest on the roster was 256, from Pekovic, their center, and he is NOT a scoring center. By comparison, last year, LaMarcus led the Blazers with 483 FG's (slightly more than Love, but they weren't from the 3pt line so I guess it's not cool enough?), and our next closest player was Wesley at 314. In fact, the Blazers had FOUR PLAYERS below LaMarcus last year that made more FG's than Minnesota's 2nd biggest scoring threat... and yet, Aldridge STILL had more than Love.

Now I know some of you are probably already screaming that I'm only using the # of FG's as an example, but my point isn't about scoring efficiency or scoring+rebounding, I'm just trying to point out where the ball goes on each team's offense, and the fact that our top 5 players all scored more than the Wolves' #2 option means that despite our offense being more versatile and spread around than Minnesota's was, Aldridge still managed to put the ball through the hoop more often than Love did. Period.

So why does Kevin Love get the ranking advantage over LaMarcus Aldridge for the coming season?

Because 2 years ago they marketed the crap out of him by stat-padding, giving him HUGE publicity for a not-huge accomplishment, which paved the road for his stealing of the All-Star spot and what has been called "the biggest all-star SNUB in league history" of LaMarcus Aldridge, which gives Love even more momentum to look good on a not-good roster, which allows him to treat Aldridge like a rookie below him on the (televised) all-star bus coverage next year, which does even more for the average fan and audience to cement in their minds that Love is better than Aldridge than actually watching them play against each other would do...

and on and on, because rankings and hype about who's best are endless cycles designed to entertain fans (it's not like the teams look at this and say "uh oh, KLove is going to be really tough this year cuz he's ranked #1"), where the rewards go to the guy who plays up his accomplishments to the fans and charms the camera in interviews, instead of going to the humble guy who quietly gets it done for his TEAM first instead of the cameras, and speaks in a low monotone with less-than-perfect grammar in interviews (sorry LTrain, I love ya man but it's just going to be something that can disconnect an audience until you learn to stick your chin out and smile for the camera).

Fortunately, a wise Baller once said, "Preseason rankings doth not the better player make" or something like that. Aldridge has a long list of doubters to get to, and Love is up there near the top. Can't wait for the seaon to start...

Posted 09/24/2012 7:45 AM

Nicolas Batum: Thanks to the blazers organisation for hiring a coach who speak french. Merci beaucoup

Posted 09/24/2012 9:06 PM

Blazer247, I'm surprised you didn't mention the Olympics. Love had less than an impressive showing for Team USA, and certainly didn't give anyone the impression that he's the best PF in the league. The better way to look at it is this: Love has put up bigger numbers, but LaMarcus is much better and more efficient at playing the PF position. So, if your rankings are based on more than just stats, I'm thinking LA takes this one.

It's similar to asking whether Westbrook or John Wall is a better PG. Wall is a much better passer, so fits the prototype of PG much better, while Westbrook is the more popular guard and has the higher scoring average.

Common, I'm not sure what the Nic quote has to do with this thread, but I like it. lol

Posted 09/25/2012 11:01 AM

Good point Pickett, the only reason I didn't mention the Olympics was like you said, Love kinda flopped there anyway, although I guess you're right that even if he played poorly it was still promotion and exposure, which is all that really matters for these rankings.

Another thing to think about: I bet LaMarcus' numbers would've looked even more like Love's, if LaMarcus was on as crappy of a team. For all the complaining and moaning that we do about the current state of our Blazers... AT LEAST WE'RE NOT THE TIMBERWOLVES. GG.

Posted 09/25/2012 6:30 PM

True. I'd much rather have this Blazer team than most of the teams in the NBA... even our rebuild looks a hell of a lot better than a typical one.