Elie Seckbach/Fanhouse talks to Kevin Love and Mark Madsen (video). Kevin Love says his mission is to find Mark Madsen a wife this year.
From Benjamin Polk/City Pages:
Ironically, although defense–of both the man-to-man and team varieties–was by far Al’s most glaring shortcoming, the team seemed to miss his defensive presence even more than his scoring. Against Toronto, the Wolves’ defense “collapsed” (not in a good way), said coach Kevin McHale. The team’s rotations and help defense, already pretty shaky with Jefferson were “a disaster” (McHale again); all night, the Raptors found eerily vacant lanes to the hoop and wide open jumpers. And Kevin Love proved neither strong, tall, nor experienced enough to guard even a hobbling Jermaine O’Neal, who burned him for 10 fourth quarter points. It turns out that even an undersized, frequently puzzled, intermittently motivated big man is better than none at all. It’s possible that the seven foot, Stanford educated Jason Collins–who, on Tuesday, saw his first court time since McHale took over–could help matters, but to watch the big guy gasping and wheezing his way through nine first half minutes, I’m not holding my breath.
The things that Brian Cardinal does on the court won’t make any ESPN highlight films.
“My role on the court is trying to take charges, make good passes, and try to make smart plays,” the 6-8 Cardinal points out. “It doesn’t always show up in the stats.”
“He’s a good teammate,” Minnesota Timberwolves head coach Kevin McHale adds. “The guys love him. He’s just a positive influence and he’s smart.”
Kevin Love: Bill Laimbeer 2.0 with better passing skills and without the Cobra Kai streak. You have to love a country where Love’s best rookie card (Upper Deck’s ’09 SPX set, the signed autographed jersey card) goes for one-eighth the money of Beasley’s card … and yet, Miami could offer Beasley for Love right now and Minnesota would make a face and hang up. Whatever.
Earlier this week, Cuban posted to his blog a list of the 30 NBA players who have the biggest positive impact on their teams when they’re in the game. They were ranked by a measure inspired by hockey’s plus/minus statistic, reflecting how well a team does with a player on the court, after accounting for the other players on the court with him. Cuban’s plus/minus adjusts for how good the team is without the player on the court as well as for the opponent and for game situations. (Without such adjustments, players on a top team like the Los Angeles Lakers would all look good, because the Lakers so often dominate.)
Kidd and three of the other top 10 players on Cuban’s list won’t be playing at the All-Star Game Sunday in Phoenix: the Philadelphia 76ers’ Andre Iguodala, the Charlotte Bobcats’ Emeka Okafor and Randy Foye of the Minnesota Timberwolves. Kidd ranked second on the list; Devin Harris, whom Dallas traded to New Jersey to acquire Kidd and is a 2009 All-Star, didn’t make the cut. The numbers didn’t favor all Mavs: Nowitzki ranked 23rd, behind Minnesota reserve Sebastian Telfair.
Nikola Pekovic – Perhaps one of the most unstoppable players in this continent, and in top form right now.
Paul Forrester/SI.com includes Mike Miller and Rashad McCants in his list of the Anti All-Stars, the players who have “failed to deliver on the floor and, in a few cases, in the locker room”:
Miller wasn’t expected to be a savior after he was acquired in the Kevin Love-O.J. Mayo draft-night swap, but Minnesota was counting on more than 10.6 points per 36 minutes of play and a career-low 9.1 points overall. The 28-year-old swingman is shooting a respectable 47.2 percent from the field, but he has often looked tentative in passing up shots that he seemingly had little trouble pulling the trigger on in the past. Miller’s 34.2 percent accuracy from three-point range is a career low, well off his 40.3 percent mark in his first eight seasons…
After getting regular minutes as a reserve in the first two months of the season, the 24-year-old former first-round pick helped spark the Timberwolves’ resurgence … when he was banished to the end of the bench. He played a total of 14 minutes over two games in January, a month in which Rodney Carney took McCants’ playing time and the Timberwolves won 10 of 14 games. After averaging 14.9 points on 45.3 percent shooting last season, McCants is down to 9.2 points on 36.2 percent shooting this season. He is also averaging 0.9 assists in 19 minutes a game
The Nets would like to upgrade the small-forward position — Caron Butler and Mike Miller have come up – add more young, athletic players and get another point/combo guard.
Outside of teaching my post move series to my guards, I don’t know what to do without Big Al (Jefferson). Where are our points going to come from? We are now woefully undersized at the four and five with two rather unathletic guys, so we need to replace Al’s size and presence with some size and presence. We can certainly use more three-point shooting, and I’m still not crazy about our point guards. As far as a trade? It’s (Mike) Miller time.
The Minnesota sports scene seems a little blah also. The Minnesota Timberwolves are achieving respectability, but for them to be taken seriously, they need a first-rate point guard and a rebounding, defensive center. That may come under coach Kevin McHale’s rebuilding plan, but they aren’t there yet.
