McHale's big mistake: Too much Love love.

[housecall]

I have kept up with OJ Mayo... at this stage i would pick him for rookie of the year,if they were judging it tommorrow.Rose is a close second,but Mayo is the closest rookie ive seen since Lebron that is NBA-ready from the start.(imo)Mayo plays a "grown-man's" game so far.

[zerophase]

i would have kept oj. i was shocked at the initial trade. oj is a much better player than what they have as guards right now.

[JBcat]

I said it draft day and now after watching Kevin Love play professional basketball for the second time this year, I'll say it again. Kevin McHale was an idiot for trading O. J. Mayo for Kevin Love.

What made him think, judging by what he saw these two players do in the Pac-10 last year, that Kevin Love would be the better professional NBA player or even a better fit of a player for the Minnesota Timberwolves? Love looked, to be polite, bad both times I've seen him play. Randy Wittman, maybe one of the poorest excuses for an NBA coach in quite some time, has decided to place Love on the exterior of the offense thinking this will open things up for Al Jefferson. Yeah, here's the problem, Love can't hit an outside shot to save his life this year.

Love had a nice 15-17 footer in college. He is not, however, an 18-24 foot outside shooter. He's taking 35% of his shots from outside with a putrid 22%eFG% His 36.9% FG% and 11% 3PT% is dismal.

Love appears slow and pretty much a tweener big guy. Too short and not long enough or physical enough for a center. Not nearly close to being athletic enough for a PF.

Compare his numbers to the ROY numbers that Mayo is currently putting up on a surprising team in Memphis.

              PTS      REB    AST     STL     BLK     FG%       FT%        3pt%
Mayo    20.0      4.8       2.3       1.33    0.08    43.5%     89.5%     40.0%
Love     8.8        6.2       1.2       0.55    0.82    36.9%     85.0%     11.1%

I really don't care how early in the season or their respective careers it is. Mayo showed huge amounts more pro potential in college and is exhibiting the same thing this year on the pro court. I think Mayo might just be the best talent and player to come out of last year's class and he fell into Kevin McHale's lap. And what did McHale do? He traded him out of town for what amounts to a third string PF on his club.

What a colossal bonehead of a move. McHale's Love love will ultimately be his worst move in a managerial career of full of horrible moves.

Nick, I think you are MASSIVELY jumping the gun on this one...Love is never going to be the scorer Mayo is, but his all-around game, smarts, and playing position in the frontcourt will make him a fine complement to Al Jefferson in time.

What you are seeing now is early-season inconsistency from a player who does not have the luxury of out of this world athleticism to help make up for the adjustment he is making to his role and the pace of the NBA game - in time, he will make this adjustment and become more consistent.

Love has had some outstanding moments in the NBA already as well as the poor. He is not knocking down his face-up shot, which to me is PURELY a comfortability thing - Love's 15-17 foot shot is money in the bank and will eventually create an outstanding high/low combo with Jefferson - having a duo like that in the front court will pay dividends in the long run.

Also, Minny got Mike Miller in this deal as well and he is suppose to be filling the wing scorer role that made it easier to make this trade. Right now, Miller isn't asserting himself enough and none of Minny's other perimeter players are scorers other than McCants. Gomes is having an uncharacteristically poor start to his 4th season and Randy Foye just isn't a dynamic scorer in the NBA.

Minny needs a go-to perimeter wing to complement the Jefferson/Love front court, but that is the easiest position to fill in the NBA and the team has the pieces to make a trade, the cap room to sign a FA, and the draft spot to take a lotto pick, (HELLO DeMar DeRozen!!!)

Kevin Love, IMO, will be a 17/10/4 PF who you can run the offense through - like Brad Miller - while Mayo will be a 25/5/5 PG/SG type. Mayo will be a bigger "star" but Love is going to be a great front court complement to Big Al and Minny should have no problems acquiring the perimeter wing they need to make the trade work in their favor.

At the end of the day, I don't think Mayo is such a prodigious talent that Minny can pass up a deal that solidifies their C/PF position for the next 10 years while adding a vet wing, (Miller) to boot.

When you focus on long term rebuilding strategy and look at the wealth of wing talent in the area Minny will be drafting in, its sound strategy. Trades aren't always about the one-for-one exchange of players - not when an organization is trying to build an entire nucleus.

Mayo is very nice, but Love is a player too and the odds favor grabbing a starting PF before a starting SG based on FA cost of each position, talent available, current roster makeup, and percent chance of adding a wing of comparable talent...

...if Minny gets DeRozen, Holiday, Evens, or Harden in next year's draft, they will have the scoring they need to complement Jefferson/Love...Jefferson makes the caliber of wing player necissary a lot easier to find...and Mayo will be pining for that dominant big long after Minny has gone into fine-tuning mode - unless you're a big fan of Darrel Arthur!

Very insightful analysis but I don't trust Mchale.  He has been the GM since 1995 and they got lucky with Garnett pick.  He could have kept Ray Allen instead made a draft day deal for Stephon Marbury in 96.  They drafted Wally and Rip Hamilton, Andre Miller, and Shawn Marion immediately followed in that draft.  Wally is a good player but if you base it on this year those guys are much better and probably overall for their careers.  They drafted William Avery in that same 1999 draft and many players such as Artest, Posey, and Kilirenko drafted after are still playing today. For 3 years from 2000 through 2002 they did not have a first round draft pick.   What happened? Oh yeah the Joe Smith debacle.  in 2003 in the first round they drafted Ndudi Ebi. who?  and the 3 guys that followed in that draft was Kendrick Perkins,  Leandro Barbosa, and Josh Howard.   McCants was a solid pick at 14 in the 2005 draft.  You have the Brandon Roy trade and I wasn't crazy about the Brewer pick at #7 last year. 

Mchale's draft history is underwhelming so I don't trust him to make the right pick next year to get a player similar to Mayo's caliber.  If McHale drafted smarter in his earlier years KG could have played with Ray Allen and Shawn Marion and KG most likely would still be playing in Sota today. 

[kw10]

in 2003 in the first round they drafted Ndudi Ebi. who?  and the 3 guys that followed in that draft was Kendrick Perkins,  Leandro Barbosa, and Josh Howard.

I was actually excited by the Ndudi Ebi pick back then lol.
But I honestly wonder, why is K-Mc still there as GM, what's with him and Glen Taylor?

Anyway, I think the wolves traded for K-Love was that they already had Foye and McCants in the backcourt, they obviously believe Foye can be an allstar one day, which remains to be seen, due to his injury last year, his stock has fell dramatically in other GM's eyes, so they would not have got what they wanted or what they think they deserve if they traded Foye, and Foye and Mayo in the same backcourt? I don't exactly like the sound of that. They are the same players, just one better than another.

[Andy Jick]

i think that part of mchale's problem is his inability to adapt to today's nba, not the nba of his day.  the nba is more like college basketball, with motion offenses, and minimal post play.  mchale seems to want a jefferson-love tandem that plays like he and parish did.  the only problem is those two players aren't that skilled, and watching kevin love play 20 feet away from the basket is painful...