No Place For Love in the Twin Cities

Being a fan of small market teams like Milwaukee Bucks and Milwaukee Brewers, you tend to relate with other small markets when they have issues with their star player. Thus when news broke on Sunday morning that Kevin Love will be testing the free agent market next summer and doesn't have much interested in rejoining Minnesota, your heart breaks a little bit.  But the Timberwolves need to do the right thing and trade Love getting as many pieces possible because Minnesota has no one to blame but themselves for the reason why Love hasn't been to the playoffs.

This isn't a small market reason in my opinion for Love. He is doing fine in the Minnesota market as he became the face of the franchise, he has been in Taco Bell ads along with other things like playing on the United States National team. Love is one of the most well-known players in the game, and he could build something in Minnesota with ease yet management has led him array by assembling poor teams year after year. Ricky Rubio never amounted to the player everyone expected him to be when Minnesota drafted him from Spain, and that's a majority of the reason why Love wants to live as he sees this team has no hope in the Western Conference. 

Love also probably doesn't want to start over with a new coach as Rick Aldeman retired this season giving him more ammo for wanting to depart from the Twin Cites. People might call it selfish, but does Love really want to be labeled as a loser for the rest of his career?  I would bet not. It will be the same issue Kyrie Irving will be dealing with shortly. A successful player can only take so much losing before he knows it is time to move on and become a winner. Minnesota fans can hate him as much as they want, but this is more of the fault of David Khan and the ones that followed for not getting him a team Minnesota could carry to a playoff appearance, a place they haven't been since 2004 when Kevin Garnett brought the Timberwolves all the way to the Western Conference Finals. 

Minnesota shouldn't be too broken up over Love's probable departure. Love's defense makes me feel like he will never be a superstar because he cannot carry a team all by himself. Much of the reason why Minnesota didn't make a trip back to the playoffs had to do with the terrible defense of Minnesota and Love in general. He will be a hell of a second banana for a team, but Love doesn't have the defensive prowess to be a superstar in this league. But there will be many suitors to acquire Love this summer and they are all teams we hear about when these sort of things happen in the league. 

The two most interesting ones for Minnesota are Los Angeles Lakers and Boston Celtics. The Draft Lottery is tomorrow night with the Timberwolves having some of the worst odds with them likely picking 13th, but Los Angeles and Boston have the fifth and sixth best odds. Minnesota could get two first round draft picks if one of those interested teams wanted to trade for Love. This would be a huge coup for Minnesota especially if either of these teams picked in the top three. If Minnesota could get a player like Joel Embiid or Dante Exum then get a James Young or Rodney Hood in the mid-first round, the future starts getting built quicker instead of being in limbo. Additionally, Love on either Boston or Los Angeles gives them an immediate boost and becomes a fringe title contender.  

Lakers and Celtics are among the bevy of teams reportedly interested in Love's services. Some of the names highlighted yesterday were Chicago, Golden State, Houston and New York.  First things first, Golden State and Houston are terrible ideas for Love. They both have massive issues with their defense right now, and they want to add a guy like Love whose one of the worst interior defenders. The Warriors would basically get a rich man's David Lee. New York is still pretty unknown when it comes to their situation. Carmelo Anthony is a free agent, they don't have a Head Coach so let's pump the breaks on the idea of Love to New York although it would be interesting. Chicago might be the most intriguing, but do you really want to lose Taj Gibson? He is likely gone because I highly doubt Chicago will go huge across the front line.

Love could stay in Minnesota and return in October which would be a little awkward although if I am Minnesota, I try to trade Love this summer. There is no reason to trot him out for a half year under a cloud of 'Will Love get traded?' It is detrimental to the team, and Minnesota could move on from Love with a new star.  

Charlie. 

What Happened to the Bulls?

We all kinda thought the Bulls were waving the white flag to the rest of the league after Derrick Rose went down, again, and then they traded forward Luol Deng for basically nothing that would provide immediate help. It turned out to be quite a roller coaster ride of a season in the Windy City.

Bucks fans and fans of other bad teams were shaking in their booties with the fear that the big market Bulls would find their way back into the lottery and reign on our tanking parades. The Bulls were 14-18 entering the day on January 7 when they traded Deng to Cleveland. Then, Joakim Noah decided to play like an MVP and Tom Thibodeau solidified his place as a top five coach in the NBA and the team began to fight their way out of the mediocre fate that they seemed destined for.

The Deng trade was a more curious move for Cleveland as they chose to go for it a little early. Clearly this was a tank move for the Bulls as they got an injured/permanently disgruntled Andrew Bynum and a pick in return and Bynum would be immediately waived after the trade. Maybe it was addition by subtraction as the move allowed more offensive freedom for the likes of Jimmy Butler and Mike Dunleavy, arguably the craftiest player in the NBA, on the wing.

A more subtle move the Bulls made was signing guard DJ Augustin who was quickly becoming an NBA after-thought. Augustin turned out to be a sensation for the Bulls this year, playing heavy minutes in Derrick Rose' absence. Believe it or not, Augustin averaged 15 points and five assists in 30+ minutes per game for the Bulls this year, shooting a pretty respectable 42 percent from the floor.

Flash forward to the end of the Bulls' last regular season game, they're sitting at 48-34 and in the fourth seed in the East. I'm assuming the Bulls hoped they'd see the Brooklyn Nets in the first round and not the Washington Wizards.

The Nets would have been a better matchup for the Bulls. They had faced them the year before in the first round of the playoffs and had beaten them in two of the three matchups this season whereas the Bulls were just 1-2 against the Wizards this season.

The Nets are old and slow (almost like the Bulls) and the Wizards are young and a pretty well-rounded team. Nene played like an animal in that entire series (17.8 points 6.5 rebounds per game), save for Game 4 where he was suspended for attempting a little mid-Game 3 Brazilian jiu-jitsu on Jimmy Buckets.

Honestly, I'd pit that Wizards starting five against any team in the league going-forward. They are a bit of a buzzsaw if they're on.

I think America got fully introduced to the 2013-14 Chicago Bulls Without Derrick Rose. The Bulls were painful to watch in the second half of these games. Taj Gibson was his normal self, for the most part, but watching him go iso in the closing moments of some of those games was cringe-worthy and Augustin playing 40+ minutes of post-season basketball isn't ideal.

Also, I've never heard Michael Fant, the resident Bulls die-hard, complain so much about the play of Noah this series. Noah was this season's Defensive Player of the Year and he was taken to task by Nene, Marcin Gortat and Trevor Booker all series. This just shows that he may need a better, tougher defender next to him. I'm looking at you, Carlos Boozer.

It'll be interesting to see what the Bulls do this coming offseason to improve the offense. There's little doubt they'll use the amnesty provision on Boozer if they can't find a trade partner for him (and they won't). Derrick Rose coming back might help but will he be the same?

It's probably going to be the Bulls division to win going into next year with the Pacers going Mr. Hyde in the second half of this season and having plenty of uncertainty for next season themselves.

I'm looking forward to hoping on the Wizards' bandwagon after the Raptors are inevitably eliminated.

-Mitch

Wizards Take Two in Windy City

Brooklyn Nets lost their final game of the season to avoid the Chicago Bulls. Jason Kidd sent out a lineup
built for failure to get beat by Cleveland making it blatantly obvious Brooklyn wanted nothing to do with the surprisingly hot Chicago team in the past couple months. A scuffling Washington Wizards team moved to the five seed on the the final day of the year to take on the Bulls. Some believed it could be a quick series, but not many saw Washington gaining two wins in Chicago including last night's overtime victory winning 101-99.

Bradley Beal is only 20 years old. He cannot even buy an alcoholic drink legally yet he delivered a great performance in Game 2 of the NBA Playoffs while I at 25 can buy booze and blogs from his bed. Beal showed why people in DC have nicknamed him 'Real Deal Beal' with a 26 point, seven rebound performance as well as making four threes. He also scuffled with Kirk Heinrich without getting thrown out of the game rather showed him, Beal wasn't taking his shit. Beal became the closer a young Washington team needs with him having some of the most clutch baskets of the game making a key three to put the Wizards only down three late plus made a free throw to tie up the game in the final minute.  Much attention gets paid to John Wall, and for good reason, but he has maybe one of the best sidekicks in all of basketball with Beal.  He looked strong tonight as Chicago had no answer for him late. 

Another player Chicago had continued troubles with was Nene. He had a monster game on the defensive side of the ball shutting down the likes of Joakim Noah and Taj Gibson on Sunday evening. Tuesday showcased more of his offensive skills as he had six big buckets in overtime propelling the Wizards. Nene finished the game with 17 points including seven rebounds. The biggest jumper probably happened with Wizards up four in the overtime period, and Nene dotted Noah from the mid-range giving Washington the six-point advantage. Even though he hadn't been in the playoffs for the last three years, Nene looked like he was a seasoned playoff veteran out there. It will be interesting to see how Noah and Gibson guard him in the next two games.

One thing that has Washington fanbase breathing a sigh  of relief is their free throw shooting did not bite them in the ass. For the team, Washington missed 12 free throws for the game and shot a sparkling 57 percent from the line. The concerning thing for the team is five of those free throws were missed by guards. I realize it is not a given guards should be good free throw shooters, but the hope is if free throws were to be missed, it would be by the big men. Washington is very fortunate their free throw woes did not end up being the difference. 

As for Chicago, they can point to the lack of a closer. This was the first time all year where I thought they really miss Derrick Rose. When D.J. Augustin is making the big shots for the team or the reliance of Henrich to make big shots, it might be a problem for this team. Chicago's masquerade of being an average team with a couple good players was quite impressive, but it appears the jig might be up for them. ESPN Chicago's Nick Friedell points out the Bulls only made four field goals in the last 12 minutes of playing time which would be a whole quarter for those wondering, but if we are getting technical, Chicago made four shots in all of overtime plus the final seven minutes of the game. Yeah they don't have one guy to close out a basketball game.  

TNT analyst Charles Barkely declared the series over in four games, but we have seen the Bulls bounce back before in the playoffs. Tom Thibodeau is by far and away the best coach in this series and he will make adjustments to find a way for Chicago to steal at least one in the Nation's Capitol. I don't think it's over, but Chicago will be facing a re-energized fanbase thirsty to see a successful Wizards team which will make it a daunting task to take two games. 

Charlie.