HANG TIME HEADQUARTERS – While most of us count down the clock on another year and brace ourselves for brighter prospects in 2011, Minnesota Timberwolves young star Kevin Love is walking, talking and rebounding reminder that there is nothing to worry about in his world.
A budding All-Star (let the politics begin regarding Love and Blake Griffin, both worthy candidates in our view), Love has the gift of gab that many of his NBA brethren wish they had. (He’s also a rebounding menace the league hasn’t seen the likes of since Dennis Rodman was controlling the glass from coast to coast.) When searching for a successor to Shaquille O’Neal as the league’s most genuinely hilarious personality, we’d like to nominate young Mr. Love, who brings it both on and off the floor.
Truth be told, Griffin is right there with Love, both on and off the floor. He’s also a double-double machine and has an underrated sense of humor that makes him one of the athletes to watch for 2011 in all of professional sports.
Who knows what mystery awaits the league in July of 2011. There are no guarantees an agreement will be worked out and we’ll have an uninterrupted work flow between this season and the next. So there is absolutely no reason for these youngsters to wait to take their place alongside their All-Star elders.
2010 is history in a few short hours. And love them or hate ‘em, LeBron James, Dwyane Wade and Chris Bosh owned it. They stole all momentum from Kobe Bryant and the two-time NBA champion Los Angeles Lakers the minute the wild free agent summer of 2010 began. Full ownership of 2010 won’t be decided until the playoffs. But you can bet history will highlight Miami 3:16 as the biggest event of the year, be it 20 years from now or even longer.
That’s fine. As much as love our history here at the hideout, we’re all about the future. What’s next? Who’s next? Who’s now?
Kevin Love and Blake Griffin, your time is now!
So don’t be shy about taking what you can, when you can. It worked for youngsters like Kevin Durant, Derrick Rose and Al Horford last year, all members of their respective conference All-Star teams for the first time in Dallas last February. All three led their team to the playoffs, cementing their status as elite players.
Love and Griffin are on a similar trajectory with their games and the entire scope of what they represent to the NBA and to the sport. This cycle must be replenished every few years, new stars taking over for those that depart or are on the way out of the league and on to other things (we realize the playoff part of the equation will be much tougher in both instances, but there is plenty of time to work on that.)
The forecast for Love and Griffin and many of the NBA’s other up and coming young stars looks bright. And it’s filled with All-Star Weekends and (we hope) eventually some postseason action mixed in as well.
All you have to do fellas is keep doing what you’ve been doing. And remember, your time is now!
You are right my friend. These young players are starting to make some big noise around the NBA and the basketball world. Specially Blake Griffin and his ability to dunk. I will be no surprised to see him as our new dunk contest champion this February; I can’t wait. He is adding a new wave of excitement to the game. I believe he is going to take the rookie of the year honors this season.
As for the Miami Heat, they are doing pretty well during their last 17 games. Let’s see how they play against the San Antonio Spurs. We already saw how the Mavericks beat them, although it was a pretty close one. And let’s don’t take the L.A. Lakers out of the picture just yet. We have the second half of the season coming with the New Year which I hope brings Love and Happiness to all of us.
Cheers!
Really like your comment, right on cue. However, after watching the NBA since 1964 I have unfortunatley been sorely dissappointed with all the “look at me” jive and other like crap. So, after 42 years, I am outa here. Leave it for those who can take all the CRAP. It was a good ride for me though…Thanks to all the stars of old that made the game the way it used to be.
If your eyes still worked you’d realize Blake Griffin isn’t about “all that look at me” crap.
you are right my friend! its getting more and more exciting!
Looking at individual quality.I repeat:INDIVIDUALLY,Kevin Love has one of the best(if not THE best) statistics in the NBA.KD?Liable to injuries.LeBron,D-Wade & Chrissy are all in the same team,so their stats are limited.Amar’e has been playing on Love’s level for only about the last 15 games or so.Rondo would be the best,but his ankle’s screwed him up.The only person who could ACTUALLY keep up with him is CP3,who leads the league both in assists and steals.
So overall,if he were in NYK or,even better,Denver(instead of ‘Melo),he would have pretty much the same stats(Maybe not pointwise in NYK),and he would also be able to play in the playoffs.15.5 rpg.Think about that for a while
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Lebron and D-Wade still have better stats than Kevin Love, and Kevin Durant is the best basketball player in the world with the first name of Kevin. Amare leads his team to wins and Rajon Rondo is overrated. If he was on a team other than the Celtics he wouldn’t be as valuable and he wouldn’t have as good of numbers.
Dear Jake,
as far as I can see you really love the Celtics
As for Griffin,he’s still a rook.A HELL of a rookie though.Let’s wait a season or two,and watch him slam.And bang.And watch his stats pull through to 30PPG. Get rid of Eric Gordon and get Kyle Lowry from the Rockets and Griffin’s stats will pull through.The guy’s an outsatanding point guard,he just needs some consistency.I feel that the Rockets are overusing Kevin Martin and Luis Scola,and almost completely shunning one of the most talented young point guards in the league.
Get rid of Eric Gordon? You’re an idiot. Kyle Lowry can carry Eric Gordon’s bags for him not replace him.
Kevin Love deserves no place among the league bigs. He is way too much overrated. He does rebound great, but he sacrifices defense for that. He is defending like a 5 year old, and he is staying way too long on the glass for ofensive rebound, and the opoments take advantage of that by scoring on fast breaks, since he can’t get back on time to cover up. His opoments are averaging like 25 ppg against him, so please, stop seeing the box scores, and watch some minesota games. He is not THAT good
You better watch it, boy. At least Kevin Love defends better than you. Give him some love and Love will love you.
Love and Griffin daserves to be an All-Star this year!
*deserves
Shaq once claimed to be the “LCL” or “Last Center Left”, because he feels centers nowadays are not what they were (they flop frequently and lack post up games both offensively and defensively). Kevin Love and Blake Griffin may have big personalities, but their play styles are closer to Rodman and Kemp–both power forwards–than they are to Shaq. At the center position the only traditional big man left in the NBA is Dwight Howard and he is offensively extremely limited when compared with Shaq/Olajuwon/Ewing/Robinson. As a longtime fan of centers the lack of talent at the position in today’s NBA saddens me.
Why are you comparing them to Shaq? They ARE power forwards.
theyre not centers theyre power forwards!!!!!!!!!
Precisely, Power forwards are not “bigs”, so this is not the “year of the young bigs”. Griffin/Love would have trouble posting these kinds of numbers if there were legit centers roaming around manning the middle.
BLAKE GRIFFIN IS A BEAST. period. end of discussion.
Love is crazy.. he probably puts a magnet in the ball and tapes one in each hand. He is attached to the ball all game. sick rebounding numbers.
love these guys games.
these two guys are doing great but you have to be on a good team to be an allstar and neither of these guys are on good teams. Love has huge rebounding numbers because his team misses a bunch of shots and he gets a few o-bourds. So hes benefitting from being on a bad team. The Blazers Lamarcus Aldridge should deserve some consideration. He is leading a injury plagued blazers to Ws and that is what stars are made of.
You don’t have to be on a good team to be an All-star. The whole point of the All-Star game is to reward good individuals for their play regardless of how their team is doing. AI made a lot of All Star games playing for bad teams, so did KG and Paul Pierce (when the Celtics were bad) and Chris Bosh etc. Lamarcus Aldridge is a good player, but I doubt any GM in the league would take him over Griffin or Love.
I just have to say that number the #7 dunk, was against the timberwolves.
Aleksandar:sorry,the reply button is bugged,so this is a reply to you.
Of course Love’s not a perfect player,his defensive skills are sloppy(especially his blocking).The thing you noticed is the lack of constant pace that Minnesota needs.Michael Beasley is partly at fault for that.He kinda forces fast-paced attack,and Love is a “second-chance” guy.He’s also not agressive.The solution to ALL this would be simple:switch Love to SF,and Beasley to PF.Putting Beasley on a more defensively challenging position would force him to slow his pace,and Love would not have to play defence against players who’ve got 20 lbs on him.Beasley is agressive,he could play,and he’s got quick hands to make up for his weight.
I agree. Aklexander should be castrated.
Either way LMA is a better more well rounded player than Love and Love wouldn’t be able to guard a three for his life. He is not a three by any stretch of the imagination. Also Beasley is a fairly good shooter but he will continue to take bad shots playing the four. And if Love was to play the three do you think he will be able to get the same number of rebounds?. Thats the only reason people see him as an allstar. If you think Love should be an allstar than Zach Randolph should have been a perineal allstar when he was in portland because he averaged 20-12 for a losing team.
i agree completely with Aklexader, Hes not even the most derserving on his team. Beasley is a better scorer and derfender and the ball is in his hands in the end o f a game. Love is overated. Gets a bunch of rebounds because the teams’s center is a softy and has no offfensive game except for putbacks and the occosional three pointer. I haven’t ever seen him do a post move and his 30-30 game was against one of the leagues worst rebounding teams. Glen Davis could put up those numbers if he was on the timberwolves.
Da BEAST OF MINNESOTA! U CAN”T TAKE HIM OFF THE TEAM LEBRON! THINK OF HOW THE TEAM WOULD BE WITHOUT Kevin Love!
Blake Griffin will be the best big man in history. I mean, look at numbers. 22/13/3 as a rookie. Nobody does that numbers. Blake will save basketball after these fatal times when Kobe is man in charge. He is overrated. Griffin will follow NBA at the top. And I mean sarna. You will see, in his third year he will have numbers like 35/20/7 and follow Clippers to NBA Championship. Nobody has answer on this young man. He is faster than pies, stronger than Mariusz Pudzianowski, happy and half white. Not another black man.
Kevin Love is a great rebounder and white, so there are two pluses. I hope he will have regularly games with 40 points and 30 rebounds. He is a good man, who helps other people. It’s important too. I like Kevin Love, because he is giving much love to everybody who love NBA, love basketball, love other people. Kevin Love love as, lovers.
Because pies.
He’s doing good this season. But Lamarcus Aldridge from Portland is way better and deserves more allstar credit than him. Which player between Aldridge,Kevin love and griffin actually got their team in the playoff race with important team injuries and all? LAMARCUS ALDRIDGE DID.he’s not just a jumpshooter anymore.he’s 2nd or 3rd in the league in dunks. Plus kevin love DONT play DEFENSE as good either
Talking about white, I mean that is good that Griffin and Love are both white, because NBA needs more tallented white men, like Gasol, Ginobili and Bogut. We all know that black people are great basketball players, so NBA needs white’ too. Good luck for Sekou for doing this job, your comments are good and I’m happy that you respect Arvydas Sabonis and George Mikan.
leave race out of it beacause everyone knows where blake got his style from. these are two great young players, period.
ALDRIDGE FOR ALLSTAR. Not Kevin love. He’s over rated
I’ve been voting for Kevin Love and Blake Griffin since the All-Star balloting began. They have to make.
FAN VOTIING IS A BUNCH OF BULL$HIT
love has talent on both defense and offense..
i watched wolves only to watch this guy..
he is one of the best PF out there.. he has the potential to be a future hall of famer..
to the people whos saying that he is overrated.. yall gotta watch him play
wanna know whos overrated? brandon jennings
Sekou! Once again man, you hit it on the head; only to have at least half of your comments miss the point entirely. Kevin Love is funny, engaging, and a rebounding specialist. I would love to see him smash a few more blocked shots out of the arena every now and then, but he has time to work on his game. For now, can’t people just appreciate that he is a machine on the boards, DOES frequently score well, and has almost zero backup (besides Beasley) to help him get said ‘W’s’ that actually somehow seem to make or break a players’ all-star chances? The one sensible thing that came out of these comments was the guy who made a sneaky little point that if Glen Davis was a T-wolf, he would probably put up the same numbers. I can concede that I would agree with that. Watching him get 16-14-5 against top flight teams, while playing for a top flight team, is no mean feat.
Griffin has somewhat more varied prospects. As a rookie, he is putting up numbers that include him in fairly elite company. My favourite stat of the year so far was the magical ’25-15-3′ number. Griffin joining Duncan, Lebron and David Lee as the only players with such a great game. Those guys have 4 each in the last 4 years, while Blake has three already in 30 games of one season. That is pretty amazing. And now, I think we are starting to see it at least TREND toward some more wins.
One main reason I can envisage that Griffin will be not be called an ‘all-star’ this season is because of Lebrons’ precious sponsors not wanting their billion-dollar man to be on the receiving end of a perfect photo opportunity. Dunking while tea-bagging Timofey Mozgov is one thing, but doing the same thing to James or Wade would be too much for the corporate big-wigs to handle. The guy is a terminator. Emotionless, bleak and cold hearted on the floor – funny and articulate and engaging off it; Griffin is a massive nightmare for every other team that doesn’t have his signature on their paperwork or their shoeboxes.
As trades come along and go just as quickly, I can see one of either Griffin or Love switch teams to chase a championship. As it stands, with Griffin, Gordon, Davis and Kaman, the clips look AVERAGE at best, and Beas and Love haven’t got a chance in hell for quite some time. That ‘time’ as it were, is something that has to have its onus placed on the teams these guys play for. Three seasons of no play-off games for these guys is going to start grating on them. Griffin going to the Lakers with Davis once Bryant and Fisher retire, Love ending up in San Antonio when Duncan retires, or either one playing ball in a system similar to Dallas/Utah/Denver would be simply amazing.
Happy new year Sekou! Can you ask Micah Hart if I can borrow his column space?
go go miami
Keep Dreaming because kevin love and blake griffin will never be voted in. you people are such idiots. Even a brainless man would realize that idiots
Yep, but only because idiots like you vote for Andrew Bynum and Yao Ming.
Agreed. The future of the NBA looks bright with these young and upcoming stars of the game. I think Kevin Love is oft overlooked but, he has a hugh upside. Sit back and enjoy the ride the rest of the season.
Griffin>LMA>Love. Really Love is soo overrated, no post game, grabs rebounds when noone care to box him out when their team is up by twenty on the t-wolves, no defense, if were going to reward players for rebounding on trashy teams then we should put varejao and McGee on the team. Love is not overlooked he’s overrated. LMA is way better than Love and Griffin is way above LMA. People from bad teams should be able to partisipate in the allstar game but i dont think Love is an all-star right now. He can easily be shut dwon on offense if someone cared to play defense on him. PF of the west= Gasol, Duncan, Lamarcus, Nowistki
kevin love go to miami you dont have future in timberwolves and the wolves must let go love trade him in heat in exchange of Udonis Haslem, Mike Miller, Mario Chalmers, Joel Anthony for Kevin Love & Jhonny Flyn…
i hup the miami heat get another center, a real center,fresh legs, young and can rebound,shot blocks,and can quackly adjust the defense….miami heat need a real center specially in the playoffs…
with LOVE, i have my doubts… but with BLAKE GRiFFIN?? hello? this man can elevate and detonates.. they both have allstar considerations, including Aldridge too. but the point is, Love and Griffin are making name for themselves, unlike Aldridge who already played under the shades of Roy thats why we have some maladies.. but going back. for me, GRIFFIN should be an all star. he deserves it
D-WILL!! needs to be an allstar starter!! hes been slacking during the month of december but once the allstar game comes around he’ll be one of the hottest players again! D-Will/Durant combo is to beast!!