I just can't classify a guy whose been in the league 6 years & never made the playoffs as elite. Elite players don't just stuff stat sheets, they can carry pretty much any roster into the playoffs. I can't think of any legit elite player who couldn't at least consistently achieve a winning record.
There is a huge difference between inefficiently stuffing stat sheets with counting stats on a bad team versus what Love is doing. He's not Evan Turner putting up 17 PPG in Philly or Beasley averaging 19 PPG by virtue of jacking up bad shots and not improving their teams' performances in the process.
Love doesn't just score a lot of points; he's doing it with remarkable efficiency, particularly for a high-volume scorer. He's also not a player who grabs a lot of rebounds simply because the rest of his team doesn't rebound well or because he's getting rebounds that would've gone to one of his teammates had he not intervened. His team's rebounding % has consistently been higher when Love is on the floor. Net rating differential, RPM and WAR, RAPM...pretty much every metric measuring impact on team performance supports the notion that Minnesota is a far worse team without love. Minnesota's offense completely fell apart any time Love was off the floor. Yes, Minnesota only won 40 games last season, but without Love they don't even sniff 30 wins.
The criticism of Love for not making the playoffs is devoid of context. His first three seasons were completed wasted by a horrible coach and an equally horrible roster. In Love's first two seasons, Rambis didn't think he deserved to play 30 minutes per game, let alone be a regular starter. The same genius also asked Love not to shoot 3s. In Love's third season (his first as a full-time starter), the rest of Minnesota's lineup was atrocious: Darko, Beasley, Wes Johnson, and Ridnour. Beasley--the same guy who couldn't get any minutes off the bench for a Miami team sorely lacking youth and depth, and who's still seeking another minimum contract--led that team in shot attempts (17.1 FGA per game). Three of the five starters (Beasley, Johnson, and manna from heaven) are either on minimum salary contracts or already out of the league, even though they're all within what should be the prime ages of their careers (they're 25, 27, and 29 years). The fourth starter--Ridnour--is a fine backup PG.
He had better players in his fourth season, but Pekovic and Rubio (a rookie) couldn't stay healthy, Johnson was still a starter, and Beasley was still playing significant minutes. It was a bad team that couldn't stay healthy.
Love only played 18 games in his fifth season.
Last season, the T-Wolves had a little more talent but were still less talented than people give them credit for. Case in point:
Not to mention that his team is not void of any talent. They have Pekovic, Rubio, Kevin Martin, Corey Brewer, JJ Barea... Those are decent pieces to have around an elite guy.
Two of those guys--Martin and Barea--are so bad that Minnesota has been trying to pawn them off on Love suitors, and it's not as if either one has a massive, Amare-level albatross of a contract (Martin only has 3 years, $21 mil; Barea has a $4.5 mil expiring).
Pekovic isn't anything close to a star player, but he's a good center...who missed 28 games.
Rubio is a really good defender and a terrific passer, but I don't think the average fan realizes just how handicapped he is by his inability to make shots anywhere on the floor. People used to talk about Rondo the same way, but Rondo has always been a really good finisher (60+% at the rim for most of his career). It's one thing not to be able to shoot , but Rubio can’t even finish when he gets to the rim. Rubio has shot below 50% at the rim in every season of his career, which is unbelievably bad. He's so cognizant of it that he's afraid to shoot.
Brewer is a solid role player. He defends multiple positions and runs the floor well. But he’s also a horrible shooter, which is more of an issue when you already have two other starters who don’t space the floor at all.
Kevin Garnett won MVP in 2004. Minnesota then proceeded to miss the playoffs for the next three seasons, in the heart of KG’s prime. They only won 32 games in KG’s last season. The next year, KG was the best player on a 66-win team. Does anyone believe that KG won MVP, then stopped being elite for three seasons, then resumed being an elite player after getting traded? Or just maybe was an elite player the whole time, while his supporting cast drastically changed in quality.
