JCWalters wrote:When you are comparing LA to Love, you are comparing a 1st option player to an at-best 2nd and a half option player--1 v 2b or 2c. When you are comparing stats, you must take this factor into account.
To elaborate in more concrete terms, LA can break the d down for his team by creating in the low post; against weaker than average teams, LA can probably create facing up, too.
Love cannot create back to the basket or face up; perhaps against really bad defensive teams (celler dwellers) Love can face up from mid to high post, but against average to some below average teams, Love has no 1st option game. Love needs someone else on his team to break down the d first, to initiate the offense.
What all this means in terms of stats is that LA's stats are accumulated against set defenses and defenses that are cognizant that LA is the offensive initiator and that Love's stats are accumulated against broken defenses and defenses that view him as someone to worry less about and work less hard against.
If Love has to overcome the higher level of d that LA catches, Love's number will drop by a lot. And if LA catches the lower level of d that Love routinely faces, LA's numbers will rise by a lot.
What you don't seem to understand is while Love is not a number 1 option and is not the focal point of our offense, the wolves don't have number 1 option. Love gets his points in the flow of our offense and from offensive rebounds. Love gets points on jumpers, the low block, and put backs. A team would be foolish not to pay attention to Love on the first two of those because he is our only consistent scorer.
Our only other scoring threat is Beasley, who has played like crap since January and is widely inconsistent, and our 3rd scoring threat averages like 10 points a game and only scores on wide open jumpers. No one our team can really break down a defense. Well, Beasley can, but for some reason he usually doesnt.
Love can also create his own shot in the low block. Is he as good as LMA? No, but dont say he can't get his shot off in the block when he can. Love is also great in the pick and pop, which is a pretty useful skill in the NBA. You simply cannot leave love open in that scenario because he will hit a 3. As for your lower level of D BS and LMA's numbers would rise, well, they sure didnt rise when LMA was a second option to Roy and saw less defensive attention. They actually rose when LMA became the focal point of the offense...
As the focal point of your offense, it is really surprising how low LMA assists numbers are. You'd think he would at least average 3.5-4 assists a game. I mean, Tim Duncan isnt a particularly good passer, but he at least averaged about that.
There are other issues, too. One issue is that Love is sleeping on big man's duties that do not show up in stats--being in defensive position against his man, being in defensive position against drives and cuts, etc. LA is not slacking on these things, so he can't devote additional energy and favorable positioning towards stat padding.
He did a pretty good job on team defense in our win against Houston. Am I saying that he is a good defender or even an average one or is even always in the correct position for team defense? No, but don't over-exaggerate Love's faults and say that his poor defense is just a way for him to pad stats
