This is exactly why I have no interest in getting a guy like Love here, no matter how good a player he might be. Sorry to say, but I'd rather root for a good group guy who work their buts off and play with a modest 'team first' attitude but get knocked out in the first or second round, rather than root for a group of guys who are good enough to contend but act like entitled whiny brats the entire way.
I don't care how many championships a group of guy might win, I can't respect players like this.
Kevin Love should retire and take up a career in Golf, or perhaps Lawn Bowls. He's been a whiny little brat pretty much his entire career and just doesn't seem to have the toughness to make it in a contact sport.
IT's response: "We can say the same thing. We're all men here. We don't need to cry...It is what it is. It's playoff basketball."
Haha love that quote!! Can't give IT a Tommy Point, so you get one for the quote!
Yeah, Love is clearly in the wrong to point out a dirty play that could, theoretically, cost him, and his team, the NBA title. Nobody else in the world would be doing that.
Well, except for pretty much every other human being on the planet.
It's one thing to say that a dirty play is dirty. To say that it was a foul, and that KO was being unnecessarily physical.
It's another thing entirely to claim that a player went out there and intentionally pulled your arm out of it's socket because he WANTED to injure you.
That's a disgraceful thing to say, and is exactly the type of comment I expect from a guy like Love, who has been an absolute whinger his entire career.
When Wade dislocated Rondo's arm, do I believe that he did that on purpose? Absolutely not. I believe that he pulled Rondo down on purpose (he was falling and clearly grabbed Rondo to try to stop his own fall), but do I believe that he was standing there thinking "This guy is frustrating me, I'm going to try and rip his arm out of it's socket"? Of course not. Was it a dirty play? Absolutely. He pulled Rondo down partially to stop his own fall, and probably partially to take one Celtic out of the play to give Miami the advantage - but I don't for a second believe he intended to hurt him.
In fact I think Rondo basically said the same thing. I'm pretty sure he said something along the lines of "it was a dirty play, but I don't think he intended to hurt me" or something.
Guys get hurt in the NBA, it happens...especially in the playoffs. I can't think of the last time I heard a guy say "I think he intended to injure me". That's just a horrible thing for a professional athlete to say about another.
Video of the play supports Love's claim. You can say that it supports a deliberate action that was not intended to injure, if you wish, but there's no question that KO did what he did on purpose, and that he was clearly doing so in a way that could easily result in injury. He didn't just lock down on the arm, after all. He clearly pulled on it, as well. KO's only defense is to claim he was stumbling.
Love and Olynyk were hooked up.
There was a loose ball situation, and the ball went past them.
Love and Olynyk both started to move in an attempt to get to the ball. Obviously this is the playoffs, and Olynyk wanted to stop Love from getting the ball, so he wanted to pull him away from the ball.
Since the only part of Love Olynyk could maintain a grip on was his arm, Olynyk tried to pull/hold him (by the arm) away from where the ball was going. In the process, Love continued to try to pull the opposite direction, towards the ball.
The combination of a 230lb Olynyk pulling one way and a 250 lb Love pulling the other essentially meant there was double the force acting on his arm, hence the dislocation.
I can almost guarantee you that Kelly Olynyk is sitting down right now, running through the situation over and over in his head, wishing that he had approached the play in a different way. I would imagine he is probably feeling absolutely horrible knowing that his actions caused this injury to another player.
Was Olynyk's play wreckless? Yes, it was. Was it dangerous? Yes, it was. Did he purposely grab Loves arm and try to pull/twist it with an intent to hurt him? No, I can assure you he didn't.
Alas that's what Love is insinuating.
Simple fact of the matter is this. If that whole scenario played out the same way, and Love managed to break free of Olynyk's grip and made a run for the ball, an no injury every happened...then nobody would be talking about it. The officials would have called a foul, everything would have been rosy. Why? Because it was a basketball play. It was one player trying to hold off another player from getting to the ball. There was no malicious intent, there was no violent tug. If Olynyk pulled him so hard that Love went flying and fell to the floor, then I'd be calling a flagrant and saying it was with intent. But it wasn't like that at all.
The only reason anybody is talking about this is because a guy got injured as a result of the play, and that (at the end of the day) is the reality of it.
Same with the Perkins play. He set a hard on Crowder, and I bet Crowder felt that hit...but there was no intent to injure him. He just wanted to make him hit the floor and give him a bruise or two - a reminder that if you play physical, we'll play physical back. Many people seem to think that should have been a flagrant, I don't think so. The only way Perkins screwed up is when he Crowder down threateningly and then started coming at him - in this NBA that's pretty much a guaranteed technical foul.
The JR Smith play was an entirely different situation. Smith made a voilent, head high swing at Crowder. Full force. Regardless of whether Crowder got hurt on that play or not, that's an immediate flagrant.
If Love said that the foul was reckless and unnecessary then I'm fine with that. That's not what he said though. He insinuated that Olynyk made the play intentionally to hurt him, and that (IMO) is an unsportsmanlike reaction to the play.
Yeah i get he's frustrated, but it's still not right.