King of Empty stats

[Yoshun]

People need to stop bringing up Love. Minnesota routinely had top 10 offenses in his TWolve years. His numbers had an immediate, obvious impact on the team and game. He was also a really good passer and was great at getting other people involved. His D was average to below average, but his numbers definitely made an impact. The team and game changed when he was on the court.

Often times when people say "empty stats" it's about a player they either don't like for some reason, or who just doesn't have a ring. Not winning a ring doesn't mean a team's best player wasn't impactful. It means either their team was not good as a whole, or there were simply better teams out there.

The term "empty stats" should be replaced by something like "misused stats" or "out of context stats." Typically that's the problem.

[RGM_SU]

What about his ORAPM? We already know his defense is poor and will drag down the stats, and that tends to not get properly measured in box score metrics.

2013-14 Kevin Love: 2.83 ORAPM, 0.80 DRAPM

If you want to argue his boxscire stats were a touch high given that, ok. But that is still a pretty solid RAPM. Star level given his role.

I have never disputed that he is a star. It's just that traditional stats / PER / BPM overrate his impact. That other guy was quoting these numbers putting him alongside guys like Tim Duncan. Just for the record, Love in 2013-14 had a BPM of 8.4, which is higher than the career-highs of Duncan or Dirk Nowitzki and I remember it very well how quite a lot of people in that time looked at those stats and said that Love was a superstar who's better than prime Nowitzki. And that's really where those stats are overrating him. His RAPM was very good, but it's still far off the impact of a Duncan / Garnett / Nowitzki. That 3.63 was Love's career high. Duncan posted a 9.11 in 2002-03, Garnett a 10.01 one season later and Nowitzki's high was 7.35 in 2002-03 as well. That's the difference between superstar numbers and superstar impact. Love's impact was/is in the category of a LaMarcus Aldridge, Pau Gasol or Blake Griffin.

It's become very difficult for big men to close games. It's too easy to swarm the paint and send double teams from every direction or use various ball denial methods. Fatigue is another factor that often hits big men harder and contributes to fourth quarter fades.

Unless you are a walking mismatch like Dirk Nowitzki, when he was younger.

[Vader]

People need to stop bringing up Love. Minnesota routinely had top 10 offenses in his TWolve years. His numbers had an immediate, obvious impact on the team and game. He was also a really good passer and was great at getting other people involved. His D was average to below average, but his numbers definitely made an impact. The team and game changed when he was on the court.

Often times when people say "empty stats" it's about a player they either don't like for some reason, or who just doesn't have a ring. Not winning a ring doesn't mean a team's best player wasn't impactful. It means either their team was not good as a whole, or there were simply better teams out there.

The term "empty stats" should be replaced by something like "misused stats" or "out of context stats." Typically that's the problem.

Love got stats for sure. Where was his "impact on the team and game" ?? Any numbers to back it up? team wins, playoff success?
Six postseason-less campaigns. A 153-323 record during his tenure here.

[Peja Stojakovic]

if you just look at raw stats it would seem like bargnani had a nice career, but he made every team he was on worse

[Soulcatcher33]

Kings these days: Demar Derozan, Andrew Wiggins, and the always present Carmelo Anthony.

[dhsilv2]

People need to stop bringing up Love. Minnesota routinely had top 10 offenses in his TWolve years. His numbers had an immediate, obvious impact on the team and game. He was also a really good passer and was great at getting other people involved. His D was average to below average, but his numbers definitely made an impact. The team and game changed when he was on the court.

Often times when people say "empty stats" it's about a player they either don't like for some reason, or who just doesn't have a ring. Not winning a ring doesn't mean a team's best player wasn't impactful. It means either their team was not good as a whole, or there were simply better teams out there.

The term "empty stats" should be replaced by something like "misused stats" or "out of context stats." Typically that's the problem.

Love got stats for sure. Where was his "impact on the team and game" ?? Any numbers to back it up? team wins, playoff success?
Six postseason-less campaigns. A 153-323 record during his tenure here.

Year With Without
2014 51% 20%
2013 50% 34%
2012 44% 18%
2011 23% 0%
2010 20% 14%
2009 30% 0%


Seems like they did better with him...?

[ZemGOAT]

I would say Russ 100% but in his case he does it intentionally

Sent from my SM-G930P using RealGM mobile app

[Mich3006]

The thread title should be another nickname for Melo

[JonFromVA]

"However, from March 20 of that season (when he left the game injured) until the season's bitter end, the Wolves went 0-12, losing by almost 15 points per game without Love. The box score for the last Twolves' victory that season is below:
http://www.basketball-reference.com/boxscores/201103110MIN.html
Look at that starting lineup for the Twolves: Beasley, Milicic, Ridnour and Wesley Johnson, with Jonny Flynn the first guy off the bench. Face it, outside of Love, the construction of that team was historically bad. The second best player on that team overall was Beasley...who would go on to lose his starting job in 2012 on the 23-46 (.333) Suns, for heck's sake! I.e., that that year's Twolves didn’t set futility records of some sort or other testifies to Love's greatness, frankly."



Due to injury, Love missed the first month, and played in just 55 games total. Of these, the Twolves had 24 wins, with 31 losses. In other words, they would have exceeded the expected win total if Love had stayed healthy.

https://www.basketball-reference.com/players/l/loveke01/gamelog/2012/



Love was injured and only played 18 games. Note that the Twolves had 9 wins and 9 losses (.500) in those games. In other words, they would have exceeded the expected win total if Love had stayed healthy.

https://www.basketball-reference.com/players/l/loveke01/gamelog/2013/



"The 2014 Wolves were 6.1 points better than opponents when Love played...and 5.6 points worse than opponents when he rested. That's just about a 12-point swing[...]. Still, you needed to watch the games to fully understand the problems. I was actually at this game:
http://www.basketball-reference.com/boxscores/201312220LAC.html
Rubio went for zero (0) points against the Clippers in 39 minutes (while Love went for 45/19/6/1 on 60% shooting against Griffin ) and some Twolves fans (links available if necessary) were blaming the loss on Love/Adelman. Note that the Clippers were double-teaming Love with Rubio's guy--i.e., Rubio was basically being left unguarded (and still couldn't hit a shot). Repeatedly, I watched the Clippers bench actually LAUGH at Rubio for being too scared to/unable to score."



Edited to add: While you could perhaps argue that Love was somewhat injury-prone, I can't see how you can argue that he wasn't positively impacting the Twolves when healthy. The bottom line was that whenever Love sat--whether due to injury or just to rest--the Twolves went into a death spiral. There was nobody else on that roster to take up the slack on offense. Rubio couldn't score in an empty gym, and Pek, while capable, was most effective in the post (limited range) and injured about as much as Love.

I think you might misunderstand what "Expected W/L" means here. It is not a line set before the season starts or anything like that, it is based on the point differential of their games. So if Love had played more games, their point differential would probably be better and their expected w/l would probably be higher. Of course, having a star like Love might make them beat their expected record, for example by taking over in the clutch, but we do not know what that record would have been if he had played a full season.

You're probably right that I did misunderstand. However, I personally had never seen someone making "Expected W/L" into an argument against one player. It would seem that the occasional blowout victory against a weak opponent would almost become a bad thing, driving up expectations but neither signaling nor bringing any improvements in personnel!

Love not taking over in the clutch keeps getting brought up as "the problem." This again seemingly underlines the weakness of this particular measuring tool when used in isolation to criticize one player. You know, Lowe wrote a great article analyzing the Twolves issues with Love in crunch time:

http://grantland.com/the-triangle/the-question-of-kevin-love/

The more high-profile meltdowns happen on offense, where the normally hard-to-guard Wolves have managed just 87 points per 100 possession on 24-of-76 shooting from the floor, per NBA.com.

Love is not the problem here. He’s 12-of-27 in these situations, with a pile of monster makes — of 31 players who have attempted at least 25 such shots, only LeBron James, Damian Lillard, and Tyreke Evans have hit a higher percentage, per NBA.com. He draws double- and even triple-teams all over the floor in crunch time. The rest of the team is 12-of-49. Rubio is 1-of-5, and two of those attempts came in Minnesota’s first game of the season.

Rubio had a frisky month of games stretching from mid-February through mid-March in which he shot 47 percent and hit an acceptable percentage of shots in the restricted area. He has also emerged as close to an average 3-point shooter, though his raw percentage is a bit misleading. He takes only two triples per 36 minutes, a career low, and he gets those shots because teams don’t bother guarding him.

Rubio’s lack of scoring punch indisputably hurts Minnesota late, which is why Adelman has overplayed Barea in fourth quarters to the frustration of every breathing basketball fan. But with Rubio neutered as a scoring threat, Minnesota has almost no off-the-dribble creator. It has no one who can take the ball from the perimeter into the paint and get buckets. Martin’s off-the-dribble game stops outside the paint and results in brutally tough shots like this.

The full article is a great read, by the way. So, in other words, the Twolves with Love would blow out weaker teams because Love was that good--thereby raising the expected win total--but the better teams would keep it close and then just double-down on Love at the end, forcing Rubio (or Martin, or Barea) to beat them. And they couldn't. And this was Love's fault? (Not saying that you made this particular point, but the other guy certainly did....)

I'm not sure where Lowe got those numbers from or why he believes 12 of 27 is good. Kevin wasn't an efficient clutch time player in Minnesota where defenses could focus on him, nor has he been very efficient in Cleveland where he's a 3rd option. He's been ok, but his best performances by far have come in the first 3 quarters.

[dhsilv2]

I'm not sure where Lowe got those numbers from or why he believes 12 of 27 is good. Kevin wasn't an efficient clutch time player in Minnesota where defenses could focus on him, nor has he been very efficient in Cleveland where he's a 3rd option. He's been ok, but his best performances by far have come in the first 3 quarters.

They came from NBA.com in the clutch stats table.

[taikibansei]

I'm not sure where Lowe got those numbers from or why he believes 12 of 27 is good. Kevin wasn't an efficient clutch time player in Minnesota where defenses could focus on him, nor has he been very efficient in Cleveland where he's a 3rd option. He's been ok, but his best performances by far have come in the first 3 quarters.

They came from NBA.com in the clutch stats table.

Yep. And more to the point, how were those numbers "not good" if they were better than just about everyone else that year? What more did you want the guy to do? Oh, and the fact that Love did this while being double- and triple-teamed is both Lowe's point and my point.

Again, nobody in this thread has been arguing that Love is an all-time great. People (including me) are pointing out that his stats weren't "empty," that he directly contributed to wins on those absolutely horrible Twolves squads. Frankly, it would have taken a LeBron to will those Twolves teams into the playoffs, and Love was/is not somebody of that caliber. He was/is a damn good player though, and his teams so far have been a lot better thanks to his presence.

[UcanUwill]

Nikola Vucevic

[ken6199]

I'm going for James Harden in 2015/16:
29.0/6.1/7.5 on .598 ts

Crazy talk.

That team starting Tarik Black, Joey Dorsey, Marcus Thorton, Jason Terry and had Corey **** Brewer as the first man off the bench. Yes Harden had various issues with the team and especially with Dwight, but without him dragging those guys all season long playing 82 games, that Houston team would be straight up lottery.

29ppg can be a DeRozan, but along with 7.5 apg you have to seriously hate the guy to call it empty stats.

[zonedefense]

Jerry Stackhouse. Most useless 29 ppg ever. Detroit really improved once he was in Washington.

[RGM_SU]

Again, nobody in this thread has been arguing that Love is an all-time great.

There was this guy:

In 2014, Love finished with a 26.9 PER (same as Duncan’s 2003 MVP season, higher than Barkley’s MVP season, and higher than all three of Bird’s MVP seasons) and .245 win shares per 48 minutes (higher than Bird’s three MVP seasons, LeBron’s first Miami season and Barkley’s MVP season).

[Vader]

People need to stop bringing up Love. Minnesota routinely had top 10 offenses in his TWolve years. His numbers had an immediate, obvious impact on the team and game. He was also a really good passer and was great at getting other people involved. His D was average to below average, but his numbers definitely made an impact. The team and game changed when he was on the court.

Often times when people say "empty stats" it's about a player they either don't like for some reason, or who just doesn't have a ring. Not winning a ring doesn't mean a team's best player wasn't impactful. It means either their team was not good as a whole, or there were simply better teams out there.

The term "empty stats" should be replaced by something like "misused stats" or "out of context stats." Typically that's the problem.

Love got stats for sure. Where was his "impact on the team and game" ?? Any numbers to back it up? team wins, playoff success?
Six postseason-less campaigns. A 153-323 record during his tenure here.

Year With Without
2014 51% 20%
2013 50% 34%
2012 44% 18%
2011 23% 0%
2010 20% 14%
2009 30% 0%


Seems like they did better with him...?

Basically you are saying that the team performed worse when a starter down than a healthy team ... and you call that some great impact?

Love's impact of the game should be judged by the games he actually played.. 153-323 is a horrible stat line..but one valid excuse is that they were tanking and Love was forced to suck.

Anyway I predict Anthony Davis will take place Love as the king of empty stats because AD has better stats, more hype, plus he even plays empty defense.

[taikibansei]

Again, nobody in this thread has been arguing that Love is an all-time great.

There was this guy:

In 2014, Love finished with a 26.9 PER (same as Duncan’s 2003 MVP season, higher than Barkley’s MVP season, and higher than all three of Bird’s MVP seasons) and .245 win shares per 48 minutes (higher than Bird’s three MVP seasons, LeBron’s first Miami season and Barkley’s MVP season).

Trying to change the debate again? This is that full post one more time...just for you:

Weird that someone without an argument finds a way to be sarcastic.

I have yet to see an argument from you. Wow his true shooting percentage is amazing , must be nice shooting wide open 3s when the offense is focused on LeBron. I was talking about his Minny days anyways , he was not nearly the impactful player his stats say he was.

In 2014, Love finished with a 26.9 PER (same as Duncan’s 2003 MVP season, higher than Barkley’s MVP season, and higher than all three of Bird’s MVP seasons) and .245 win shares per 48 minutes (higher than Bird’s three MVP seasons, LeBron’s first Miami season and Barkley’s MVP season). The 2014 Wolves were 6.1 points better than opponents when Love played...and 5.6 points worse than opponents when he rested. That's just about a 12-point swing.

http://grantland.com/features/kevin-love-lebron-james-trade-minnesota-timberwolves/

Who takes it from this site:
http://stats.nba.com/teamOnOffSummary.html?TeamID=1610612750

As for the seasons prior to that, I've posted on this before. His first two years, Love was a back-up to Al Jefferson. Who were the other starters? On the 2008-9 roster, it was Ryan Gomes, Randy Foye, Mike Miller and Sebastian Telfair. Of that starting line-up, only two players were NBA caliber starters—and one (Al Jefferson) played Love’s position. (This was one of the hallmarks of the Twolves throughout the "Love" era…Love’s most capable "help" almost invariably played Love’s position.) Keep in mind that Love--as a rookie coming off the bench and playing just 25 minutes a game--led that Twolves team in win shares (5.3 to Jefferson’s 4.9), and was second in rebounding, second in blocked shots and fourth in points.

In 2009-10, the starting line-up featured Al Jefferson, Corey Brewer, Ryan Gomes, Jonny Flynn...and Darko Milicic. Just one NBA caliber starter in that line-up, and (yet again) he played Love's position. Yet Kahn, ignoring Love, would argue that Milicic was the key, seeing him as the second coming of both Vlade and Webber (e.g., below):
http://deadspin.com/5588342/darko-milicic-is-bread-from-god-and-other-crazy-things-david-kahn-believes
This was part of another Twolves pattern--overvaluing the quality and contributions of the players besides Love. Oh, despite coming off the bench and playing just 28 minutes a game, Love led that Twolves team in win shares (4.9 to Jefferson’s 4.6) and rebounds, and was second in points. Keep in mind that Love also led the league in offensive rebound rate and posted a per-36-minute line of 15.8 points and 12.9 rebounds per game, yet coach Kurt Rambis (whom Kahn hired before the season) refused to start Love.

So, for the first two years, Love was coming off the bench behind the only NBA starter-caliber player on the roster. Then, in 2010-11, Love won the MIP award--and people on REALGM exploded in multiple threads about Love's supposedly "empty" stats and how "his" team had never made the playoffs. However, from March 20 of that season (when he left the game injured) until the season's bitter end, the Wolves went 0-12, losing by almost 15 points per game without Love. The box score for the last Twolves' victory that season is below:
http://www.basketball-reference.com/boxscores/201103110MIN.html

Look at that starting lineup for the Twolves: Beasley, Milicic, Ridnour and Wesley Johnson, with Jonny Flynn the first guy off the bench. Face it, outside of Love, the construction of that team was historically bad. The second best player on that team overall was Beasley...who would go on to lose his starting job in 2012 on the 23-46 (.333) Suns, for heck's sake! I.e., that that year's Twolves didn’t set futility records of some sort or other testifies to Love's greatness, frankly.

Did this make Love the franchise player? Nope. Everyone here knows about the contract, the short-changing in years given, and how it was given to Love in the locker room after a loss:

I have heard from people I trust that David Kahn presented Love with a contract offer in the training room -- not sure if it was the only formal offer ever made or the latest -- after Monday's loss to Houston and that Love was seen leaving Target Center with it crumpled in his hand and visibly angry.

http://www.startribune.com/sports/blogs/138024983.html

Keep in mind that Kevin Love was averaging 24.9 points and 13.9 rebounds per game at that time. If he had finished the season with those averages, he'd have been the first player to do so since Moses Malone in 1981-82.

Note also that the crux of the matter was that Taylor and Kahn wanted to save the "designated player" money for either Rubio...or Derrick Williams.

The four-year deal gives the Timberwolves some flexibility going forward and keeps that maximum offer available for point guard Ricky Rubio, No. 2 overall pick Derrick Williams or another player down the road.

http://espn.go.com/nba/story/_/id/7502324/kevin-love-minnesota-timberwolves-reach-four-year-deal-opt-out

Understandably, because Kahn thought Ricky Rubio and Jonny Flynn were going to be the next Walt Frazier and Earl Monroe:
https://ca.sports.yahoo.com/blogs/nba-ball-dont-lie/ex-timberwolves-gm-david-kahn-reportedly-thought-ricky-154255546.html

And Taylor thought Love was not a star:

Sometime during all of this, Wolves owner Glen Taylor -- who in 2007 accused Garnett of “tanking” -- said Love wasn’t a star because he hadn’t led the team to the playoffs, a sentiment so delusional it begs the question of if Taylor had ever looked at his own roster.

http://espn.go.com/blog/truehoop/post/_/id/70176/kevin-love-lost-in-minnesota

This link also gives a good summary of things:
http://www.sbnation.com/nba/2013/5/3/4296498/david-kahn-fired-timberwolves-kevin-love-jonny-flynn" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Now, Ricky Rubio was a good player overall, with the potential to improve--I thought at the time that he could even become a perennial all-star. Still, you needed to watch the games to fully understand the problems. I was actually at this game:
http://www.basketball-reference.com/boxscores/201312220LAC.html
Rubio went for zero (0) points against the Clippers in 39 minutes (while Love went for 45/19/6/1 on 60% shooting against Griffin ) and some Twolves fans (links available if necessary) were blaming the loss on Love/Adelman. Note that the Clippers were double-teaming Love with Rubio's guy--i.e., Rubio was basically being left unguarded (and still couldn't hit a shot). Repeatedly, I watched the Clippers bench actually LAUGH at Rubio for being too scared to/unable to score. Also, look at Pek’s stats—the guy was a potential stud, but his game was redundant with Love on there. Both were above average scorers/rebounders (with Love being obviously the better of the two). Both were also actually decent man-to-man defenders in the post--just sucked at help defense and at protecting the rim in rotations. I.e., their strengths/weaknesses were redundant—which again was a common theme of the Twolves drafts/trades over most of the Love years. Beasley (really a PF), Dante Cunningham, Derrick Williams (really a PF), Anthony Randolph, Anthony Tolliver--the common theme under Kahn was to bring in people with the same skills as Love, then force either him or them to play out of position.

So, yeah, I think Love did have a positive impact on the Twolves. However, there's only so much that one player can do.

That's the full quote of what I wrote. I.e., my position throughout has been that Love's stats did matter, that he had a meaningful impact on the Twolves win total. You're the one arguing that Love was directly responsible for the Twolves' poor record. Are you still hurt because I asked you to provide proof...and you couldn't?

[dhsilv2]

Love got stats for sure. Where was his "impact on the team and game" ?? Any numbers to back it up? team wins, playoff success?
Six postseason-less campaigns. A 153-323 record during his tenure here.

Year With Without
2014 51% 20%
2013 50% 34%
2012 44% 18%
2011 23% 0%
2010 20% 14%
2009 30% 0%


Seems like they did better with him...?

Basically you are saying that the team performed worse when a starter down than a healthy team ... and you call that some great impact?

Love's impact of the game should be judged by the games he actually played.. 153-323 is a horrible stat line..but one valid excuse is that they were tanking and Love was forced to suck.

Anyway I predict Anthony Davis will take place Love as the king of empty stats because AD has better stats, more hype, plus he even plays empty defense.

2 of those seasons they had a 50% or better record with him. 09 and 10 he wasn't even a full time starter. Are you really going to hold those season's records against him?

He made them a LOT better, he just had a horrible team around him.

[RGM_SU]

That's the full quote of what I wrote. I.e., my position throughout has been that Love's stats did matter, that he had a meaningful impact on the Twolves win total. You're the one arguing that Love was directly responsible for the Twolves' poor record. Are you still hurt because I asked you to provide proof...and you couldn't?

You still haven't provided a quote where I stated he was responsible for their poor record. Your reading comprehension is quite lacking for somebody writing that much. And the one trying to change the debate is you who was trying to hype up Love as a Tim Duncan / LeBron / Larry Bird type of player and is realizing that he overshot his target and barking out loud to cover up that fact.

[JonFromVA]

I'm not sure where Lowe got those numbers from or why he believes 12 of 27 is good. Kevin wasn't an efficient clutch time player in Minnesota where defenses could focus on him, nor has he been very efficient in Cleveland where he's a 3rd option. He's been ok, but his best performances by far have come in the first 3 quarters.

They came from NBA.com in the clutch stats table.

Yep. And more to the point, how were those numbers "not good" if they were better than just about everyone else that year? What more did you want the guy to do? Oh, and the fact that Love did this while being double- and triple-teamed is both Lowe's point and my point.

Again, nobody in this thread has been arguing that Love is an all-time great. People (including me) are pointing out that his stats weren't "empty," that he directly contributed to wins on those absolutely horrible Twolves squads. Frankly, it would have taken a LeBron to will those Twolves teams into the playoffs, and Love was/is not somebody of that caliber. He was/is a damn good player though, and his teams so far have been a lot better thanks to his presence.

Sounds like Lowe just chose a crappy stat. The 82games version which takes in to account scoring in the last 5 minutes of a close game is more representative of a player's ability to help his team close out games.

I agree his stats were not empty, but being able to help your team close games is pretty important.