Scholarship table
One more reason I said Love was overrated when the Cavs traded for him - and I was one of the few who said that. Most here thought it was a great trade for Cleveland.Being a star on a terrible team does not mean you are a top 10 or 20 player.
You'd rather have Andrew Wiggins than Kevin Love? Agree to disagree. Love was slightly overrated in Minnesota, but he has become underrated in Cleveland. The Warriors are a bad matchup for him. But they're a bad matchup for a lot of players. His roll changed from being "the man" to being a guy who spreads the floor and hits the boards. He does those things very well. The guy had 15 points and 21(!) rebounds last night.
One more reason I said Love was overrated when the Cavs traded for him - and I was one of the few who said that. Most here thought it was a great trade for Cleveland.
It was a great trade for Cleveland.Next!
Maybe - but I expect Wiggins will be an All-star many times over. And his defense and speed would really help Cleveland in the current series.My point though - and I didn't state it very well - was that Love was overrated in Minnesota. At the time of the trade, most here thought he was a top 10 player in the league. He was not.
I mean, he's only 22, but he hasn't really shown a dramatic improvement in the 3 years in the league. Still has a bit of a volume shooter without an outside shot. Raw numbers are there, but I don't see an all-star just yet. Even if he ends up being better than Love, I still make the trade. For Lebron and the Cavs, the question wasn't about who will be better in hindsight...it was who is better NOW. The Cavs got a championship out of it. Maybe the Wolves "win" the trade of a player they were going to lose anyway. I think both would say they're happy with it.
No doubt each team ended up with the player most valuable to their current situation. Cavs with Love to win now, Min with Wiggins to build. But that doesn't mean Cleveland couldn't have done better with that deal. When they traded for Love, he had one more year with Minnesota before he could opt out. So essentially, the assets traded were the #1 pick for 1 year of Love (Min and Phil also traded some players, picks and an exception to make the thing work). Sure, there's the risk that Minnesota trades Love somewhere else, he likes it there, and then never signs with Cleveland. But LaMarcus Aldridge, Marc Gasol, Paul Milsap, DeAndre Jordan, Goran Dragic, DeMarre Carroll, and Wes were all UFAs or had player options that offseason, so there were comparable players (or combos of players for less than the max) to be had.
Didn't they have to trade for a player under contract to obtain his Bird rights? Love wasn't going to be able to make the money elsewhere that he is currently making in Cleveland.
Oh, yep that's totally right. Just glancing at Love's deal, its identical to Gasol's when he re-signed with Memphis that year, but the Spurs could only offer Aldridge $80M over 4. So Cle could essentially offer Love an extra year at $25M by trading for him rather than waiting him out. Certainly reduced Cleveland's leverage with Minnesota threatening to send Love (and his bird rights) somewhere else.
In Love's 3 seasons in Cleveland, the Cavs have gone to 3 straight Finals and won a title. That's obviously not all because of Love, but it's tough to argue with those results.
You have hit on the point perfectly as to why I feel the Cavs would be better off with Wiggins. These things don't exist in a vacuum. If the had kept Wiggins, the Cavs would then have had the money to go after Aldridge, Milsap, Horford, etc. And I don't think there is any question that Milsap/Wiggins are better than Love/JR Smith.
As to Sultan's point, GS is the best team I have ever seen in the NBA. The '87 Lakers, '86 Celtics, and '96 Bulls are all in the picture, but I think this team exceeds them simply because there is no way to stop them at one end of the floor and they are excellent at the other end.
The '96 Bulls were better than the current Warriors team. Back when teams were allowed to play physical D, the Bulls' ORat was 115.2 compared to the Warriors' 115.6 in a much more wide-open, offense-friendly league. Surprisingly, the Bulls' team 3P% was also better than the Warriors' (40.3% vs 38.3%) and defensively, it's no contest. The game has obviously changed a lot in the last 20 years so it's tough to say who would win a head-to-head, but in their given eras, the Bulls were the better team. Don't get me wrong, the Warriors (assuming they win it all) are an all-time team but they're not better than Michael's Bulls.
But the Cavs likely would not have been able to sign either Alridge (went home to San Antonio to play with a competitive team) or Millsap (signed for max to stay in Atlanta).
Aldridge is from Dallas. Saying he went home to San Antonio is a bit like saying Dwyane Wade went home to play in Detroit.
I'm a Bulls homer, but this is correct. The Bulls were just as good offensively, better defensively and much better at rebounding. And they had a better bench.
He specifically said that he was going home to Texas when he signed, but your point is well taken.
The Bulls are better defensively because the rules allowed them to be and the league was terrible offensively at the time.
Was the league terrible offensively at the time?ORtg in 1996 = 107.6ORtg in 2017 = 108.8