The Paul George Safari: LeBron Strikes Back!

gourimoko said:

That measurement means nothing with respect to his individual contribution.



Which is irrelevant to the point I made.



Kevin Love barely played in 2015-16, and didn't play in 2014-15. I think we win both of those series in 6 with Wiggins filling in for an absent player.

This isn't a measure of Love vs Wiggins, but Wiggins versus a cardboard cutout....

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This is the correct answer..

Not to mention if we can say that guys like JR, Derrick Williams are "better by being close to LeBron"
Why can't the same be said for Wiggins? His role would have been significantly different. He'd have to fight defensively day one to carve out his role.

As the Warriors have shown us the last 3 years Athleticism Matters

Don't get me wrong. I'm happy to have Kevin Love. He was worth trading for. As you said its not so much Love vs. Wiggins but as it turns out what we need vs. the Warriors.
He's the "better player", but as it turns out Wiggins would have been a better fit against the Warriors. Especially if he developed right under LeBron.

I still believe if we didn't force our hand we could have got both. T-Wolves are a bad organization and we gave them a break. Should have at least made them sweat until making a deal. At least get other assets. Love was leaving, they could have given us Lavine or Dieng.

TyGuy said:

If anybody can find the post I made towards @The Oi about having to piss in my dreams it would be greatly appreciated. I'm curious when I had the first signs I was a diabetic and how long it took me to get diagnosed.

Oh and:

View: https://twitter.com/RealGM/status/880124467116036096


Credit @Simon

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Before anyone gets their hopes up, it mentions the Spurs and Cs to as teams he would commit too.

TitleTown said:

100% agree. This "Love doesn't contribute in the finals" narrative is horseshit.

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No, it's not, and only on Cavs message board would you hear that.

TitleTown said:

In finals #2 he had a serious concussion.

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He wasn't a major factor in that series... He played below replacement level.

TitleTown said:

In finals #3 he contributed a TON to our team,

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We lost that series; so by definition he can't contribute to something that doesn't exist. We didn't win the title.

C'mon guys... this, this shouldn't even need to be said..

This isn't a knock on Kevin Love, this is an acknowledgement of what actually happened in objective reality.

I can acknowledge that Love has struggled, but I just don't think it's right to say he is the reason why or why not the Cavs win or not, when there are always other factors, like our transition defense, our lack of play making on offense, etc.

I'm all for moving Love btw if it improves us, but I'd say that about anyone but LeBron on our team.

gourimoko said:

Kevin Love played in 6 out of 7 games in the Finals, missing 1.

He put up 8.5 PPG / 6.8 TRB / 1.3 APG on 36.2 / 26.3 / 70.6... He rocked a TS% of 46.8% and an eFG of 41.5%...

He had a net rating of -16...

I'm a fan of the guy.. but to say he "helped us" win the Finals is just wrong.. it's fanboish... He had a decent game in Game 7..

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Id rather a dude be trash in games 1-6 and have a good game 7 than a dude be on fire in games 1-6 and have a shitty game 7 and we lose the title.


So he indeed did help us win.

gourimoko said:

We lost that series; so by definition he can't contribute to something that doesn't exist. We didn't win the title.

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Well, by that definition our whole team is replaceable.

The fact remains: people want our 3rd fiddle to put up numbers that NO 3rd fiddle puts up. In oither words, they want Love to put up numbers as if he's one of our top 2 options.

That's a contradiction, and no player in the 3rd fiddle role will live up to those expectations.

Kizzle said:

Id rather a dude be trash in games 1-6 and have a good game 7 than a dude be on fire in games 1-6 and have a shitty game 7 and we lose the title.


So he indeed did help us win.

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Well we needed him in game 5 this year to get us to a potential game 6 or game 7..

I don't even like sounding like a "Love hater" Hell I said he was the 2nd best player on the team until he hurt his knee. I've argued that Kyrie needs to do a better job getting him the ball as well.

He was the most consistent player in the ECF, yes over LeBron imo.

Its just we need to figure out a way to get great value for him or hope that he can play like a high level all star against the Warriors. The Durant move just makes it that much tougher and everybody is on notice.

Regardless of what people think of Love's Finals play, a mere swap of PG for Love still doesn't help us pull even with GS. We still need to work on getting some of the old timers off of our bench.

gourimoko said:

I'm a fan of the guy.. but to say he "helped us" win the Finals is just wrong.. it's fanboish... He had a decent game in Game 7..

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You cannot hypothesize that another player would have equaled or surpassed Love's contributions, no matter how minimal you perceive them to be, in a game which we won to capture the title. It's a foolish exercise in conjecture and a futile one that leads nowhere.

We won a title. Love contributed. End of discussion.

TitleTown said:

Well, by that definition our whole team is replaceable.

The fact remains: people want our 3rd fiddle to put up numbers that NO 3rd fiddle puts up. In oither words, they want Love to put up numbers as if he's one of our top 2 options.

That's a contradiction, and no player in the 3rd fiddle role will live up to those expectations.

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I'm not really saying anything like that though... I think you're combining the arguments of people who generally dislike Love on this team (I'm not one of those people) with the argument I'm making here..

I'm simply stating that it is an objective fact that Love was not a major factor in us winning a title in 3 attempts. Given he didn't play in the first series and was actually a negative factor in the second series until Game 7; and given the fact that we lost the third series; it seems apparent to me that Love wasn't a factor in winning a title.

Does that mean he sucks? No. I'm not arguing anything more than the point that we should be able to acknowledge the objective fact that Love wasn't an overall positive factor in us winning the one title we got.

JMoneyYourHoney said:

You cannot hypothesize that another player would have equaled or surpassed Love's contributions, no matter how minimal you perceive them to be, in a game which we won to capture the title. It's a foolish exercise in conjecture and a futile one that leads nowhere.

We won a title. Love contributed. End of discussion.

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Does that also apply to the head coach of the team that won you a title?

JMoneyYourHoney said:

You cannot hypothesize that another player would have equaled or surpassed Love's contributions, no matter how minimal you perceive them to be, in a game which we won to capture the title. It's a foolish exercise in conjecture and a futile one that leads nowhere.

We won a title. Love contributed. End of discussion.

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You can compare Love to a baseline, an average level player; you can look at Love's usage and see where those possessions went and did they help or hurt the Cavs...

If you don't want to be part of a discussion like that, that's fine; then I would agree this is the end of the discussion with you...

ACisKING said:

Does that also apply to the head coach of the team that won you a title?

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Of course not.. because .. reasons...

It could apply to fucking anyone.. it's a silly argument.. one made simply because there's no basis in fact to argue on the merits.

Dunno why people have to get personal over someone saying the obvious. Go to any forum in the NBA and they'd tell you the same thing.

Kbiz8288 said:

Regardless of what people think of Love's Finals play, a mere swap of PG for Love still doesn't help us pull even with GS.

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I doubt it even makes us a better team than before. Maybe very slightly.

gourimoko said:

I'm not really saying anything like that though... I think you're combining the arguments of people who generally dislike Love on this team (I'm not one of those people) with the argument I'm making here..

I'm simply stating that it is an objective fact that Love was not a major factor in us winning a title in 3 attempts. Given he didn't play in the first series and was actually a negative factor in the second series until Game 7; and given the fact that we lost the third series; it seems apparent to me that Love wasn't a factor in winning a title.

Does that mean he sucks? No. I'm not arguing anything more than the point that we should be able to acknowledge the objective fact that Love wasn't an overall positive factor in us winning the one title we got.

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By that logic, LBJ was a non-factor in winning two titles because we didn't win titles. That's too basic--it fails when tested against other players.

Love's stats in this 3rd finals are GREAT for a 3rd fiddle. He was not why we lost. Our team defense was why we lost.

The only player I'd trade Love for, personally, is PG. And I'm not convinced that makes us better overall. I actually think we'd be worse offensively by replacing Love with PG, but better defensively. So, it's probably a wash.