MINNEAPOLIS – Most basketball players take their time before talking after games. They joke and shower. They get dressed in varying degrees of designer clothing, transitioning from athletes into nothing more than ridiculously tall and well-dressed men. There's confirmation that, yes, these people exist away from arenas.
Kevin Love is not most basketball players. He's waiting, ready to talk as soon as possible, his feet still submerged in a freezing tub, his knees still bulbous with gauze and ice. He's become the voice of the Minnesota Timberwolves, somehow a leader at just 23, and his routine is about more than just convenience. It's about holding court and speaking his piece, about talking with the Timberwolves logo still splashed across his chest.
Other players walk out the door when they've finished. Love walks to the showers. Few see him leave and witness any confirmation that he has a life beyond the confines of hardwood and locker room. He does, of course, but it's difficult to imagine after the season he just had that he has much time for anything except basketball.
In just a year, Love has radically transformed his game. He's gone from slightly soft rebounder to toned scoring leader, from barely legal to adult in the course of little more than a summer – and a beard. He's evolved from the best player on a woefully bad team to the man Ricky Rubio has called "our star" on numerous occasions. It wouldn't be a stretch to argue that the fans' swoons over Rubio are nothing compared to the rookie's swoons over Love, and it's amazing what averaging 26.0 points and 13.3 rebounds can do in terms of rampant hyperbole.
In April, Warriors coach Mark Jackson described Love's numbers as having a "video game" quality, a statement that borders on exaggeration, but remains within the realm of truth. No one else in the league posted numbers like Love's across so many categories, and his blend of scoring and rebounding, three-point shooting and determined endurance was more the stuff of clicker-controlled animation than reality.
Love's year ended with a concussion on April 11, and at the close of the regular season, he finished as the NBA's fourth-leading scorer and second-best rebounder. Dwight Howard was the only other player whose name appeared in the top 10 in each category, but he fell at the extremes: first in rebounding and 10th in scoring. Love also averaged more threes per game (1.9) than any power forward in the league except Orlando's Ryan Anderson, all while averaging the second-most minutes of any player in the NBA.
So, yes, video game may apply in this case.
But even as Love has shifted into the role of an elite scorer, he's still hard to define. There are few comparisons that work across all elements of his game, and many opponents have launched a desperate quest to define him. There's a rush to categorize him, as if now that he's reached some vaguely elite status, he must be put in the box that will define his career. Take Nuggets coach George Karl, for instance, who in March drew comparisons between Love and – avert your eyes, Celtics fans – the great Larry Bird.
"We used to call him kind of a poor man's Larry Bird," Karl said. "I think you can take 'poor man's' off that comparison now."
It was the highest of compliments, but off base. Bird didn't average fewer than 20 points in a season until four years before he retired, but he was also a far less prolific rebounder than Love. Bird's best rebounding season in 1982-83 was 11.0 per game; Love averaged 9.1 in his rookie season and reached 11.0 the next year. Those numbers don't match up under scrutiny, but to watch Love on the court does suggest a simple likeness to Bird: He doesn't always look like an elite basketball player.
Sure, he's muscular, and after losing 25 pounds in a relentless effort to get in shape last summer, Love looks less plodding, more athletic and sure-footed, yet still not physically imposing to the point of a Howard or LeBron James. His game doesn't appear explosive enough to generate the points he's putting up, yet somehow he still does. That deceptive quality is at least in part due to the way Love learned basketball, from his father, Stan Love, who played in the NBA from 1971-75. His father taught him how to rebound, how to exploit his low center of gravity, how to use his elbows in all the right ways – all from watching tapes from the '70s and '80s.
"One of the things about him is he's kind of a throwback," Timberwolves assistant Terry Porter said. "The current model of a power forward is athletic and can run and can jump. Kevin's an old throwback. He just brings his lunch pail every day and gets down there and battles, scratches and claws."
Until this season, Love was known most for the skill he credits his father with teaching him: rebounding. And though his numbers dropped off a bit in his fourth year, from 15.2 per game in 2010-11 to 13.3, he's still among the NBA's best. A good comparison in this respect might be Ben Wallace, who averaged 13.2 rebounds in 2000-01 and 15.4 in 2002-03, but if Love manages to push his numbers back to where they were last season and sustain that kind of production, his name could be discussed alongside Dennis Rodman, one of the best rebounders in league history. Porter is already comfortable drawing that comparison.
"Totally different body types and stuff, but I think the way they both went about rebounding, it's unbelievable," Porter said, undeterred by Love's slightly lower numbers this season.
In terms of scoring, if Love continues to average near the 26.0 points he posted this season, his name should be discussed among the likes of Dirk Nowitzki and Karl Malone, who are the only power forwards since 1980 to consistently average around that number over several seasons. And as impressive as Love's scoring has been, it's nothing compared to the three-point shooting numbers he's posted.
Love joined the Timberwolves just a year after the team dealt Kevin Garnett to Boston, and by virtue of that shared first name and a similar role on the court, the comparisons began. Three and a half years later, as Love's performances have begun to suggest he's more than just a slow-footed rebounder, it's easier to create those similarities with Garnett. But just ask Porter, who's coached Love and played alongside Garnett, and you'll find those comparisons unwarranted.
"Both of them have a strong desire to be great and want to maximize their potential while they play this game," Porter said. "That's about it."
Just look at Garnett's first four seasons compared to Love's: Garnett averaged 15.2 points to Love's 17.3, 7.8 rebounds to Love's 12.0. It's impossible to say Love is better with just a four-year sample size, and the comparisons he's drawing now aren't to a young Garnett, but to the Garnett who led the Timberwolves to eight straight playoff berths. Love still has a long way to go to become a player who can contend with those achievements.
"The one thing that you're seeing from Kevin is the last few years, every year he has improved a part of his game," former Portland coach Nate McMillan said in March. "I think he came into this league as a rebounder, a passer, and that was the focus, keeping him off the boards. He's become an unbelievable perimeter shooter with the ability to step out to the three-point line and be a big-time threat there."
He's also gained the confidence to be the team's last second-shooter, one of the few Timberwolves who remains just as efficient and focused when the game is on the line. With the team on the cusp of a playoff berth until a late-season breakdown, Love's numbers mattered more than ever, and his month of March – during which he averaged 30.7 points, 13.9 rebounds and shot 44.9 percent from long range – was the only thing that kept the team's full-scale collapse at bay.
"Most of the time I don't even realize I'm doing it," Love said. "I know I'm playing at a high level. I know I'm being efficient, and that's really what counts to me. When I look at the stat sheet after the game, I definitely surprise myself sometimes. But, to be honest with you, it's not like I'm looking up seeing how many rebounds do I have, how many points do I have, how many shots have I put up."
This season, there were 19 games in which a player finished with at least 30 points and 15 rebounds. Ten belonged to Love, and no one else had more than three. His 51-point night on March 23 in Oklahoma City tied Kevin Durant for the second-highest scoring performance in the NBA this season, and he also finished that game with seven threes and 14 rebounds. Both are more than Durant or Deron Williams (whose 57 points on March 4 marks the highest-scoring performance of the year) finished with in their 50-point nights.
There's no way to deny that, statistically, Love is a coach's dream, and the way he's arrived at those numbers – through diligence and a dogged work ethic – makes him all the more remarkable. But it's easy to get caught up in statistics like his, especially on a losing team where there are few other numbers that generate excitement. After so many years of coaching, most of them with winning teams, Adelman knows that all too well, but he's also aware that Love's value goes beyond just the tidy lines of box scores. Even so, if and when the Timberwolves can contend, it will be interesting to see the consequences for Love's numbers.
"When you're not on a very good team, I think stats can be really misleading," Adelman said. "I've seen a lot of players that put up great numbers on poor teams. When the games mean something and they're playing where the other team knows what's going on, those numbers don't quite add up then."
That's not to say Love will fade from relevance if the team contends. But if the Timberwolves are going to win, they most likely need another scorer, someone to live up to the expectations Michael Beasley never met. That might somewhat alter Love's role, but if history is any indication, he'll find a way to compensate.
"I think it's when he gets his shots and how he gets them at this point, how he expands his game as far as passing the ball, how he expands as far as getting his shot when the game's on the line," Adelman said. "Those are all things that great players figure out."
Going forward, Love will continue his dogged improvement, and he'll do all he can to transform the Timberwolves into a winning franchise. But he also has an opportunity more significant than those because with his unique statistics and style of play, he may have a chance to redefine what elite means in the NBA.
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