Iommi wrote:See, the thing is, any general manager in the NBA right now would take Randolph over Love, strictly based on Randolph's potential. Randolph is an unbelievable athlete, who is starting to put together his basketball skills, and the results have been thusfar impressive. Love is a middling to sub-average athlete who has an incredibly polished game. It's very difficult, nigh on impossible to improve athletiscism this late in life, so how much more polished do you propose Love's game can become? His jumper can get more consistent, and his positioning can become even more perfect, but I see his best statistical season being like, 15/12. With a guy like Randolph, who can jump out of the gym, has terrifying length, and runs like a gazelle, it's possible he could average twenty-five points a game in his prime, maybe more. Saying Kevin Love has proved his usefulness in the NBA more is a perfectly logical, defensible point, but it's glaringly obvious that Randolph's ceiling dwarfs Love's, and at this point in their careers, front office brass and talent evaluators hold potential at a higher premium than what they've already proven (This is only true to a point, but Randolph did look incredibly promising last year, and that was without minutes, confidence and direction).
See, this reeks of someone who hasn't actually watched much of Love. He wasn't that polished last year, honestly. He has a much broader base of skills than Randolph, but he has plenty of work to do on them and thus plenty of room to improve. For example, he routinely got blocked at the rim for taking bad angles on his shots, leading with the ball and not being aware of weak-side defenders. Those blocks will change to FT's as he learns to draw contact on these plays. He was also hesitant on his jumper and rarely went 1 on 1 in the post, yet showed success at both at times. When he "polishes" these skills up and executes them at an NBA level he'll be much better than he was last year. It's not like he came in and did everything he's ever going to do and set his ceiling in stone.
I'm not saying he's going to be better than Randolph. I think Love is more of a sure thing while Randolph has some serious potential, but to write Love off as having a low-ceiling just because he was effective last year is ignorant. He could easily be a 18/10 guy when his jumper starts to fall, especially considering the PG's he's going to be playing next to. I love some Randolph though - it's going to be interesting to follow his career.
