Make The Deal vs Not So Fast - Kevin Love

http://espn.go.com/boston/hot/?id=10970414


All you need is Love (and Rondo)
Robb By Brian Robb
Special to ESPNBoston.com


The Celtics should do a deal like this in a heartbeat. In fact, they should even be willing to consider sweetening the offer and adding another first-round pick if Minnesota's demands are raised.

That may seem like a high price to pay, but a player of Kevin Love's caliber is worth the steep asking price.

Not many All-Stars in their prime become available via trade, so president of basketball operations Danny Ainge needs to take advantage of the opportunity if he gets the chance and pounce on a deal for Love with the treasure chest of draft picks he has stockpiled.

It may be alluring for Ainge to keep building the team's assets and play the waiting game in free agency as part of the team's rebuild, but the painful truth is that Boston is not a premier free-agent destination in the NBA.

Landing a building block like Love on the open market is no sure thing, as players of such ilk can't be counted on to hit free agency very often moving forward. As more savvy front offices pop up around the league, teams are becoming smarter about locking up their stars early or acquiring them via trade, like the Rockets did with James Harden.

The Celtics have one established star in place already with Rajon Rondo, and acquiring Love would make Boston a more appealing spot for complementary free-agent pieces to land. Ainge would still maintain a sizable collection of picks and young talent to build around Rondo and Love.

Fully committing the team's future to Rondo and Love does not guarantee that the Celtics will become a contender right away, but it would build a promising core.

With a respected coach in Brad Stevens, strong ownership and a proven front office in place, the team should be able to convince Love to stick around for the long haul. Those factors make bringing in Love the Celtics' best option to form a winner in the next few years, despite a high asking price.



Patience is the smart play
Forsberg By Chris Forsberg
ESPNBoston.com


It's a safe bet that an offer like this would merely start the conversation and Minnesota, with teams across the league tripping all over themselves to obtain a player of Kevin Love's stature, will undoubtedly look to up the ante. If the Celtics commanded three future first-round picks in return for an aging Kevin Garnett and Paul Pierce, it makes you wonder what the Wolves could request for Love.

Which is why I think the Celtics might simply be better off exploring other avenues with their bevy of assets. Let the rest of the league get caught up in the Love pursuit, which could very well end with Minnesota realizing it might be better off hanging onto him and making the sort of moves that could entice Love to stick around.

Boston has a lot of needs. Power forward isn't one of them. We spent an awful lot of time last season pondering whether Jared Sullinger could ascend on a Love-like path; the green light he had this past season to jack 3-pointers suggests the coaching staff sees that potential. Will Sullinger ever be a player the caliber of Love? Time will tell. But even if he doesn't quite reach that level, he's going to be an excellent player, and you start to wonder if the Celtics simply need to be patient in this rebuilding process.

Yes, the 2013-14 season was a grind. No one wants to lose 57 games -- not fans, not coaches, not players, not ownership. But sometimes it's a necessary evil on the rebuilding road.

With the assets acquired to this point, the Celtics can put themselves in position to be a sustained contender with the right moves. Yes, Love accelerates that process, but at what price? Danny Ainge has plenty of means to add talent, many of which don't require mortgaging the team's draft pick surplus and committing max money in order to keep Love in Boston more than one season.

Another year of rebuilding isn't going to generate any excitement, but you have to trust the long-term vision. Let's just say we shouldn't fall in Love with a short-term solution.




bob
MY NOTE:  KG was the 2nd domino to fall, not the first, he was the 3rd of the Big 3.  He was the final piece of the puzzle, the last thing we needed besides fillers.  If Danny gets Love before getting Asik (or whomever) then we may have gutted our team with a glaring need still to go.  Sometimes timing doesn't work out the way you want, you take what you can get when you can get it, but I'd love to see the center position filled first. Besides, I think that having a legit starting NBA center on board will help to sell Love too.  



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I cannot envision Minnesota trading Love to Boston for Sullinger, two first round picks and filler (Bass, Bogans) to make the salaries work.
Minnesota has mostly bombed on draft picks.
I doubt they want to keep playing the draft pick game.
They can absolutely get more established talent for Kevin Love then Sullinger.

Bob,

We definitely agree that the proper acquisition order would be the center first and Love second. (2) See what assets are left after acquiring the center and (2) make the Celtics more attractive for Love to consider.

But I'm reading the Houston is considering offering Asik and Parsons for Asik (and the Rockets would have to add another body to make the salaries match).  The one thing Houston lacks is a high draft pick.  But player-wise, I believe the Rockets' offer would be more enticing than anything the Celts could put together (short of including Rondo) unless perhaps the Celts included something like three first-rounders.  Even I, who is on record as condoning over-paying for the right prize, would have to do a double-take on that one.

One thing about future first-rounders is that, IF the Celts had a nucleus of Rondo, Asik and Love upon which to build, I have a feeling those would be pretty low picks.

Sam

tjmakz wrote:I cannot envision Minnesota trading Love to Boston for Sullinger, two first round picks and filler (Bass, Bogans) to make the salaries work.
Minnesota has mostly bombed on draft picks.
I doubt they want to keep playing the draft pick game.
They can absolutely get more established talent for Kevin Love then Sullinger.

+1

I would be shocked to see Love end up here.

If anywhere, I think he's heading west.

Any player would love to go to Cleveland.

I went to Cleveland once.

It was closed.

Sam

Sam,
And I thought you're a kind and considerate person....  

AK

steve3344 wrote:http://nypost.com/2014/05/23/ranking-the-most-likely-trade-destinations-for-kevin-love/

This writer says the Celtics have the third best chance of landing Love, after Cleveland and Phoenix.

steve,


Would this be the one of the same NY sports writers who were talking about Rondo going to the Knicks for broken-down old nag Amar'e Stoudemire and a bunch of spare parts?  He has the grace to rank NYK last in the Kevin Love Sweepstakes, or is that just a glimmer of rational thought peeking through, soon to be extinguished the next time he remembers just how bad the Knicks are and Rondo's name is mentioned in passing?  I swear, after reading those nonsensical Rondo-to-New York trade rumors, I pictured a newsroom with a bunch of writers looking like actors trying out for the starring male role in Nabokov's Lolita. Aqualungs with word processors.

Just like a few other dunces, he actually has Cleveland as the most likely to land Love.  Man, if Love coming to Boston is being tamped down because of the weather and he's a west-coast guy, then Cleveland is jumping from the frying pan into the fire, or should I say from the refrigerator into the sub-zero freezer?  Also, if they give up the #1 pick for Love then what makes Cleveland so great?  Kyrie Irving, great but without Embiid or Wiggins or Parker, it's just Irving.  We won 25 games with Rondo playing in only 30 of them. Cleveland won just 33 games. They don't even have a coach, so who knows what style of play he'd be getting himself into?! They're so FUBARed I wouldn't be surprised if they re-hired Mike Brown, whom they just fired. How does that make them better than Boston?  I just don't get the whole "I'd give up a franchise player and one of the top players in the NBA for an unknown who could maybe someday become a franchise player, if he doesn't get injured but does live up to his potential in a perfect world" attraction.  Give me a high-flying bird in the hand over one that hasn't even shown he can fly yet.  

Phoenix, I think, is legit.  They have the weather, proximity to LA and his girlfriend (for whatever value that has for Love) and a team that's pretty good now and is poised to make a nice push with someone like Love.  Phoenix also has assets to offer Minny. GSW might be better positioned than Phoenix, from Love's perspective, but if Klay Thompson is not included in the package they're not as attractive to Minny as Phoenix.



bob



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5/27/14:  This is the Pioneer Press, of the Minneapolis/St Paul locale.  It is not ESPN or B/R etc.  It's the local paper covering their team.


http://www.twincities.com/timberwolves/ci_25846232/charley-walters-timberwolves-still-holding-pattern



As for the Kevin Love situation, at least as of Tuesday the Wolves expected him to play for them next season rather than trade him. If the all-star power forward isn't traded, though, he can opt out of his contract after next season. A report elsewhere that Sacramento has made an offer for Love isn't accurate.

Neither is it accurate that prospective coaches aren't interested in the Wolves job because of the uncertainty of Love's status.

If the Wolves were to lose Love to free agency, they will have plenty of cash to sign other players. If they trade him, they will have assets.

The Wolves have regularly fielded inquiries about whether Love, Nikola Pekovic and Ricky Rubio are available, but that hasn't changed from a year ago. Even with those players, the Wolves have not become a playoff team.



bob



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