LeBron’s mind and Kluber’s cutter: While We’re Waiting…
July 28, 2014Tribe Weekend Recap: Santana streaking, rotation turning, and opportunities blown
July 28, 2014While many continue to debate the merits of players involved in a deal for Minnesota Timberwolves forward Kevin Love, the great unknown continues to be how long Love would call Cleveland home. There are rumors that he’s demanding a trade to Cleveland and wants to play alongside LeBron James; Cleveland would be the only place he would commit to in the way of a long-term deal, starting with an opt-in for 2015-16. But The Plain Dealer’s Terry Pluto says not so fast:
Love is guaranteed $15.7 million this season, with a player option for $16.7 million in 2015-16. I wrote a column insisting the Cavs should demand Love pick up his option before making a deal. Talking to some NBA executives, that could be a problem. One executive explained how the best move for Love may be to come to the Cavs on the current deal — no changes. He becomes a free agent in 2015, then signs a five-year deal for the maximum (could be more than $100 million) to stay here. …
If Love picks up his option for 2015-16 this summer, the most that a team can immediately add is a two-year extension. I’m hearing Love will not pick up his option… I’m hearing the Cavs realize they may have to accept Love’s current deal and gamble on him enjoying playing in Cleveland and with James. Then they will try to sign him for a maximum deal in 2015. So don’t be shocked if a deal is made with his contract situation staying the same.
There has been plenty of Twitter angst surrounding this aspect of the deal. On one side is a group saying that you can’t gamble with a No. 1 pick in Andrew Wiggins if you’re only going to get one year out of Kevin Love. On the other side are those saying that Cleveland team’s have gone decades without swinging for the fences and have wound up empty-handed. The Collective Bargaining Agreement certainly only muddies the waters even more.
Do the Cavs trust Love? Does Love love Cleveland? Stay tuned. We’re about to find out, one way or the other.
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(AP Photo/Jim Mone)
69 Comments
It’s way to big of a risk now, to give up Wiggins. Can not screwed like LA did with Dwight Howard.
If he gives us a Carlos Boozer handshake, then I’ll trust him…
We’ll find out in 26 days…
http://www.timeanddate.com/countdown/to?iso=20140823T00&p0=417&msg=Love-O-Meter
So we tell Minny that if Love dumps us, we get Wiggins back. Otherwise no deal.
Can we please wake up and not deal Andrew Wiggins for this guy. if it’s a title we seek as quickly as possible, how is Love going to help us defeat the western conference with his lackadaisical defense prowess? http://straighthoops.com/whats_love_got_to_do_with_it.html
I believe that the reason that Gordon Gund, by all accounts a very decent man, sold the Cavs was because he was so shocked and disgusted when Boozer stabbed him in the back that he just didn’t want to deal with people like that anymore.
Kevin Love is too good to pass on. You have to do it. Any time you can get one of the 5 best players in the league, you do it. Especially when you’re adding him alongside the best player in the league.
Seems fair.
Re the “dare we give up Wiggins” debate, heard it put nicely in one of the Grantland podcasts: with Lebron ready to turn 30, do Clevelanders want to open up the “window” for a championship as wide as possible or as long as possible? The consensus out of town seems to be forget waiting, go for wide, get the ring the city needs. Maybe that’s LeBron’s attitude also.
Here’s what I worry about: doubt they’re going to the Finals this year, regardless. it’s going to take some time to gel, and no starters other than LeBron and fading Andy (if he’s actually healthy at season’s end) have a conception of what the playoffs are about. If Love won’t commit for 2 years, knowing all this, I’m kinda suspicious.
Best 15 players in the league? Sure.
Best 5 players in the league??? Um, no.
You’re wrong.
Oh?
That hard hitting rebuttal has completely changed my mind. Well done.
It was as detailed as the complaint it addressed.
Outside the box thinking on this one. Only in baseball do I think trades like this one happen, but, why not?
For sure that was awful, but I kinda think the main reason he sold was the king’s ransom offered by Dan once the incompetent Gund stumbled into winning just about the best draft lottery ever. And Gund even got to keep a few shares for his trouble.
Well, if I believed PER was the end-all-be-all of NBA metrics, I might agree with you, but it is not, so I do not.
Ultimately I guess I’d rank NBA players in tiers.
LeBron and Durant are in the top tier. Westbrook, Paul, Griffin, Love, Aldridge, and many, many others are in the next tier.
So ultimately I guess you could argue that Love is the 3rd best player in the league. But my point here is there are about 12 guys who are basically just as talented as Love, which is important when thinking about what you might be willing to give up for him.
ooh. good point.
Nice explanation.
Gund tried his hardest to move the North Stars out of Minnesota and was gifted the San Jose Sharks as a reward. He bought the Cavs for $20M to keep them at the Coliseum which he owned. Twenty years later, he sold 90% of the team for $375M. The guy was a shrewd businessman, not some innocent puppy.
Well okay, nj0, but I never said he was an innocent puppy. I said he was decent and honorable. And he wasn’t all that shrewd if he got suckered into a handshake deal by Boozer.
As for being incompetent, Harv, I don’t know about that.
Hard to find anyone who wants to deal with Carlos Boozer anymore.
Or why can’t the Cavs have him sign a contract in advance that goes into effect in 2015 and/or 2016 and covers all contingencies?
I’d never trade Wiggins if there’s any chance that Love walks in a year or two. NEVAH!
Ah, I do not believe PER is even a useful metric, much less the end-all-be-all. Wins Produced, on the other hand, is the only metric that actually correlates to the wins a team produces. It explains wins in a way that no other metric does successfully. Win Shares is very good, as well, but does not factor in defense as well as WP does. WS does end up accounting for something like 90% of WP, though, so it’s pretty good.
Dave Berri is the creator of the stat and goes over its origin in the book Wages of Wins. If you’re into sports at all, I highly recommend it. It also addresses other sports. Think Sports Freakanomics. Great stuff.
The metric is also explained on his website, here: http://wagesofwins.com/how-to-calculate-wins-produced/
All that to say, I think the stats do tell you most of what you need to know to evaluate players. Basically, a player needs to be an efficient shooter and productive at keeping the ball and securing the ball for his team to be a productive player. This is why Lebron and Durant are, as you said, in a class by themselves, and Melo is not a player you can build a winning team around.
Love had the 5th most WP last year, with 16.6. If you look at active players, his WS/48 over his entire career (including a really poor 12-13 season in which he was hurt for the whole thing) is .189, which is very high, enough to put him at 9th total.
http://bkref.com/tiny/obKRx
If you look at that list, there are 4 players who are no longer what they used to be, specifically Duncan, Ginobli, Dirk, and D-Wade. If you remove them, Love comes in at #5.
What makes Kevin Love so good? He’s an absurdly efficient shooter. (His TS% was 59.1%!!! last year) He rebounds far beyond average (16.5 reb/48 vs 11.6). He also passes very well (5.9 p48 vs 2.8 avg) and fouls very little (2.5 vs 4.1), which both help your team by getting your teammates more efficient shots and keeping your opponent from having the most efficient shots.
Compare him to say, Griffin and Aldridge and you see that those guys don’t do any of those things as well as Love does. Particularly their shooting. Remember, every shot you miss that your team doesn’t get the rebound on is basically a turnover. http://www.boxscoregeeks.com/players/compare?utf8=✓&player_ids%5B%5D=128&player_ids%5B%5D=185&player_ids%5B%5D=273&season=2013
While I agree, Lebron and Durant are at the top, the pecking order behind them is not as wide open as I think you believe it is. There are guys that are a step above. Chris Paul is 100% one of those guys. Kevin Love is another.
Fortunately Gilbert has his eyesight.
You are both wrong…top 10! 😉
I theorize it this way:
Love wants to play in Cleveland. He doesn’t think going the “force a trade” route is a good one, both PR-wise and maybe business-wise. Maybe it’s just not his personal style. whatever.
But he also wants Cleveland to have the best team possible if and when he gets there. SO it would behoove him to help the Cavs get the best deal they can while being sort of a passive-aggressive player in the whole thing. He doesn’t look bad because he isn’t demanding anything, but he’s obviously getting his message across by his action/inaction.
The opt-out possibility is both a good business move for him, and a leverage chip for the Cavs to hold on to in their negotiations. If Love won’t officially give his word that he will pick up his option and then re-sign long-term, it certainly makes his value much lower, thus helping the Cavs obtain him for less (i.e. sans Wiggly) and thence making the Cavs a deeper and better overall team.
Hm, interesting… That’s an angle I hadn’t thought of. I guess it’s impossible to know for sure without being Kevin Love, but it makes sense.
i don’t like NBA metrics (some are great but i don’t think there is a be-all/end-all WAR-type metric for basketball) for the main reason that sytems, coaches, and teammates have too much sway over a player’s results.
I am not convinced that a guy’s win-share on one team positively correlates to his presence on another team. If you have Lamarcus Aldridge already on your team what happens to Kevin Love’s metrics once you sign him? You can’t just say that a team wouldn’t sign Kevin Love if they already had Aldridge because metrics need to work over and across any situation.
For example, I don’t know how effective Tim Duncan would be in a fast-break system, but I know what he does in the pick-n-roll. I’m sure there are metrics that can tell you how he is in each individual situation with his current team, coach, and teammates, but how would he fare in a completely different situation? You can’t measure such a thing, in my opinion.
CBA rules dictate how/when we are allowed to sign him to contracts/extensions. We are limited right now (no Bird rights).
How many millions later?
As they cover in the book, coaches actually don’t have much of an impact on player’s results. If you look at the data, there were like 2 coaches that changed their players’ production. I believe they were (unsurprisingly) Phil Jackson and Greg Popovich. I could be wrong about Pop, but I know Phil was one of them.
What you’re saying makes intuitive sense, but the data just doesn’t seem to support it. Players are who they are for the most part.
This is essentially my worry as well. I get that you need to win 1 championship before you start talking about dynasties, and you want to everything you can to win while LeBron is still in his prime. But to me it’s not a question of whether you should win now or win later. It’s a question of how to maximize your number of chances to win that championship. So do you want to be Miami or San Antonio? You think San Antonio would be this kind of success if they hadn’t made sure there were always youngsters in the pipeline?
That said, I think Love would ultimately resign here if we possess the bargaining chips of both the most money and the best chance to win a championship. That’s not my worry. My worry is that all future roster flexibility lies with those young bargaining chi….er….players. What if the roster just isn’t good enough to get it done?
At the end of the day, I’ll probably take 5-6 years of Kevin Love over 7-8 of whatever Wiggins becomes, but the risk associated with his contract is why there aren’t many other suitors – maybe NO other SERIOUS suitors, no matter what Minnesota leaks out about GS and Chicago. Make the deal eventually, but waiting for the Wolves to blink is exactly what Griffin should be doing.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s-pFAFsTFTI
just so you know, i am not anti-metrics, just don’t believe that basketball can have a single number (like Hollinger’s PER) to define production.
But your point is that only 2 coaches change their players’ production: the 2 greatest coaches of all-time. Players are who they are until they get into a system that actually works, and which is supported by the rest of the team.
There is so much freelancing in the NBA that i can see how Pop and Phil would be the only ones to have everyone buy-in. I don’t understand how you can say that players are who they are.
Can you do me the favor and let me know James Harden’s numbers over his career? I am just not sure where you’re looking to find the info. Also, would love to see Dwight Howard’s numbers. Would love an explanation of how these players are who they are and have always been. It could help me to jump aboard the metrics wagon.
Name your top five players in the NBA.
Thanks for the lengthy, thought-provoking response. I haven’t sunk very far into the link you gave me but was surprised to see Splitter rank 14th, and Greg Oden of all people rank 21st, ahead of Joakim Noah, making me question if this is really the silver bullet of analytical tools for the NBA, but I do appreciate your point, and I may be undervaluing Love when I call him Top 15. Shammy’s being funny, but he’s probably closer with his Top 10 point.
Lebron, Durant, CP3, Love, Kawhi
Are all these guys willing to take the risk of injury to wait for a long term deal until after the change in the CBA? Sure…if LeBron’s career ends early due to injury, the guy is worth hundreds of millions. But Kevin Love? If his career ends midway through this season, nobody remembers the guy more than 5 years from now.
Someone’s going to bet on their health and lose heading into the new CBA. I actually think Chris Bosh is pretty smart looking here. He took the long term deal now and left a bunch of potential money out there…but that’s just it…if he didn’t do it, and got hurt this year…those potential dollars never become real.
Don’t economists usually recommend the lump sum over the payment plan for lottery winners?
LeBron, Durant, CP3.
Then I’d draw straws between these guys for the final 2: Love, Curry, Harden, Griffin, Westbrook, and A. Davis.
Also if Chris Bosh still plays like a second banana when he needs to be the first, that max deal is going to look great for him in about 3 years.
Splitter is actually a really productive player, but the Oden thing is puzzling. I suspect he had one GREAT year, then got hurt. If you limit it to the past 4 seasons, Oden disappears and Noah jumps to 13, ahead of Splitter and many others, which I feel is more accurate. I could’ve done a much better job at fine-tuning the season finder there.
Unfortunately, WP is only available for the past 2 seasons and isn’t as searchable as BkRef is, you can compare individual seasons, though if you cross reference BkRef with BoxScoreGeeks.
For instance, here are both sites for this past season comparing WP to WS. WP is ultimately the superior metric and is closer to the “silver bullet” than WS is for sure.
http://www.boxscoregeeks.com/players?direction=desc&minimum=true&sort=wins_produced
http://bkref.com/tiny/Q4YOu
There will be some unconventional placements on the list. Ultimately I believe that’s because NBA GMs and the Bill Simmonses of the world are rather poor at talent evaluation. There’s a reason few understand the Spurs while the Spurs keep getting better and better.
Totally get where you’re coming from. I also cannot stress enough that PER is hot garbage. It is good for absolutely nothing.
For Wins Produced data, that’s coming from http://boxscoregeeks.com. Win Shares data is from http://basketball-reference.com. Their Season Finder is where the meat is for these purposes.
With Dwight, you see his numbers take the normal rise after his rookie year, culminating in his penultimate season in Orlando, when he posted a .234 WS/48. It takes a drop in his next, injury ridden season. Followed by a further drop in his LA odyssey. But, he was also injured for that and the team was a MESS. Environments that volatile are rare, but it seems like perhaps it made a difference. Following that, he began a rise back up last season.
http://www.basketball-reference.com/players/h/howardw01.html#advanced::none
The Dwight numbers to me say he was never the same after his back injury. Anecdotally, he doesn’t seem to have the spring he used to, when you watch him play. It seems that the numbers bear that out.
For Harden, we see a steady rise for the most part. Interestingly, he produced the exact same amount of win shares this year to last, but he needed more minutes to do it last season. You could perhaps say that he had a tough time adjusting to a new system, or that he was trying to do too much on his own. I think any explanation is a guess for the most part. It was just one season.
http://www.basketball-reference.com/players/h/hardeja01.html#advanced::none
lackadaisical defense prowess
Again? Sigh, this is old.
Leonard, really? Sounds like Spurs championship hangover to me. The kid is on the rise no doubt but how much of his play is a result of where he plays? He’s not in my top 5, top 10 or possibly top 15 too early.
I’ve been big on Kawhi since last season. He’s better than people think.
I amended my answer. It’s probably Harden in that 5th slot. Answered while walking my dog and wasn’t looking at anything. He’s definitely top 10, though.
Leonard is on the rise but he’s not near top 15 for me. Doesn’t me he won’t be but not right now. Like I said I want to see what he does when he doesn’t have a Duncan, Parker or Ginobli around him. It’s always easier for someone to be the fourth cog when you have three battle proven Champions alongside. Duncan will be in the HOF.
thats a bit of a low blow
The comment had more to do with the imagery of Boozer with his free hand behind his back fingers crossed then Gordon Gund being visually impaired. Take it easy. Besides if your gonna blow, do it low!
Cavs have plenty of youngsters in the pipeline. That worthless franchise probably has more top 5 lottery picks on the current roster than any team in the NBA history. Losing Wiggins and Bennet for love still leaves you guys with kyrie and waiters. Don’t forget love isn’t even 27 years old. Spurs never had all of that.
Personally I wouldn’t give up wiggins, but I’d dump Kyrie. I love his talent but I don’t think he deserved that contract and will be the third best player on that team if Love is there. Don’t forget this kid has never been durable..EVER. I’d play waiters at the 1..that kid reminds me of a Dwayne Wade offensively with a way better jumper. Defensively a backcourt of Waiters and Wiggins would be better than kyrie and waiter could be a 20 ppg starter. Lebron is slowing down and you don’t want him being the only starter able to defend opposing wings and pgs. WIggins helps all fo that. If you guys got gorgui dieng along with love..you guys would have just as bright a present as a future.
I agree.