Revisting the Kevin Love-OJ Mayo trade

[B Calrissian]

Wolves got the better player, got rid of Jaric's contract, and don't have lilojmayo.

Clear victory for the Wolves.

[b-ball forever]

In terms of Wolves' player stats, Ridnour is having a major comeback season and Darko/Love/Beasley/Randolph are all putting up big numbers compared to previous production, yet the Wolves still suck a fat one.<BR itxtNodeId="995"><BR itxtNodeId="994">They're playing at a very high pace but the talent level isn't as good as the numbers suggest, as evidenced by their team record.<BR itxtNodeId="993"><BR itxtNodeId="992">Swap Mayo onto the T-Wolves and Love onto the Grizz. <BR itxtNodeId="991">Mayo would be putting up 22/4/4 as their starting SG/Go-To player and the Wolves would still be garbage, while Love on the Grizz would be averaging 10/7 in 25ish MPG off the bench and the Grizz would still be a fringe playoff team.<BR itxtNodeId="990"><BR itxtNodeId="989">In the grand scheme of things, nobody really won the trade for now. Only difference for the Grizz is that Love would prolly have a bit more trade value then Mayo currently does.

<BR itxtNodeId="988"><BR itxtNodeId="987"><BR itxtNodeId="986">If we beat the Spurs ( assuming we play the Spurs) we will advance to the Western Conference Finals. I was the first to say it.<BR itxtNodeId="985"><BR itxtNodeId="984">OJ Mayo is going to be big time for us in the playoffs. Looking forward to see Manu and OJ and Tony battling first round.

I like the Grizz and will be rooting for em in the first round for sure regardless of whether they play the Spurs, Mavs, or Lakers.

But they're still a fringe playoff team until proven otherwise as it stands.

[carrottop12]

This trade is just about as bad as the foye/Roy deal.

[lilojmayo]

8 mile said it the best. OJ is all about winning it is that simple. There aren't many young players in the league who you can say that about, Rose and Durant come to mind right away also. But most young players winning is extra.

In Love's case he doesn't even play to win, he plays solely for stats. I have seen games where his team were down 20 points and Love kept looking up boxscore, so he could get a double double during garbage time.

I want no part of that player, give me the winner that is going to win me a playoff series in OJ Mayo anyday of the week.

This narrative is absolutely ridiculous. I'm sorry but it is. You are clearly starting from a place of wanting Mayo to look good, and letting that bias your reasoning.

Look, in college, Love chose to go to a school with a coach he could learn from, and led his team to the final 4. Mayo chose to go to the school that would pay him money, and managed to make them not a bit better than they had been the previous year or would be the next year without him.

Then there's the matter that Love's shooting actually blended in with his teammates. Love shot 10.4 FGA with hyper-efficiency in college and had 3 other teammates who also shot 10+. Meanwhile, Mayo shot 16.2 FGA, nearly double any of his teammates, at mediocre efficiency. And Love is the selfish one? Please.

None of this has ever meant that Love will have the better NBA career, or even that Love will be a better teammate - but so make a vehement statement damning Love's desire to win to prop up Mayo is about the craziest thing I've ever heard on RealGM.

lilojmayo is a Mayo homer, but your history is a bit revisionist too.

Love's FGA were low in college because he had a lot of talent around him. Collison, Westbrook, Mbah a Moute. UCLA was already a Final Four team without Love, and their only major loss from the previous Final Four team was Aaron Afflalo.

Mayo had Taj Gibson and that was it. USC lost 3 of their top 4 from the previous year: Gabe Pruitt and Nick Young both went to the NBA, and Lodrick Stewart transferred to Kansas. The fact that USC was able to maintain their level of success in Mayo's year was actually a pretty significant achievement.

In 2008-09 the Pac-10 was way down, and frankly, USC's record was inflated. 2007-08 had been a banner year for the Pac-10, which had 6 players go in the top 15 of the 2008 NBA draft: Mayo, Love, the Lopez twins, Westbrook, and Jerryd Bayless.

The USC roster that won 22 games in 2008-09 would have been lucky to win 16 games in 2007-08. They benefited from both a weaker Pac-10 than the year before, and a weaker non-conference schedule.

OJ had no help in college, it is that simple . Taj was so soft at that time, so soft. He really developed the year after when DeMar came to town though. But when OJ was there Taj was so soft. Davon was one of my favs, but he was just an athlete, lack fundamentals. Dwight was pretty good for the 3rd option i'll give you that. Hackett was a ball stopper at pg . Not to mention they had no bench. Tim Floyd has one of the slowest halfcourt offenses I had ever seen. The gameplan was relatively simple stop OJ Mayo, he is their team.

I am still scratching my head on how they beat that UCLA team with Westbrook, Collison, Affalo, Love and Stanford with the Lopez Twins etc etc. Or how they played CDR, Dorsey, and Rose's Memphis squad to OT ( although they choked should have that) they also played Kansas very very tough.

If OJ had some help just another big time player like those other top schools that year, he could have made a deep run in the tourney.

[Coach Thibs]

Nobody knows how good O.J. Mayo would be if the offense was built around him.

True - we only know that he's not good enough to warrant having the Grizz build an offense around him despite not having a true franchise player on the team, and that his game is not flexible enough to fit in if he's not the one the offense is built around.

IMO that's not a fair way to look at it. Looking deeply at Memphis' coaching, Hollins doesn't utilize Mayo as a key player in his offense. Mayo too often is left standing in the corner and not doing anything..with Gay/Conley dominating the ball.

Also, the lack of consistent minutes has really hurt his game. Its hard for any player to come off of the bench, especially when that player was used to being a starter his entire life. Look at how well Marcus Thornton has played for the Kings when he went from playing insignificant minutes for the Hornets to being a starter on the Kings. It's almost like night and day.

I'm not suggesting Mayo is good enough to be a first option or be a franchise player, but I'd suspect he'd be a much better player overall if he was given the opportunity to play through his mistakes. As far as his flexibility - I think his shooting ability itself is indicative of it. He really doesn't need the ball in his hands to be effective. He just needs more minutes. A different situation. A better coach. And a better point guard running the show. If you plug him in, say, to the Chicago Bulls, I'd imagine he'd put up 15-17 points per game as a starter and being efficient.

[BubbaTee]

This trade is just about as bad as the foye/Roy deal.

I don't remember the "winner" of that trade spending years in the league's dumpster. POR was a .500 team by Roy's 2nd year, and won 54 games in his 3rd.