10 NBA superstars who are not considered superstars
By Amaar Burton
2. Kevin Love
While the last four years have brought Kevin Love a championship and more success than he had previously known in his NBA career, it also involved Love being an innocent bystander in the public’s battle over the polarizing LeBron James.
LeBron’s biggest critics were prone to overrate Love, because the better he was, the more damage it did to the narrative that LeBron was carrying the Cavaliers. LeBron’s biggest supporters were often guilty of underrating Love, because it helped the King for Love to appear less than a superstar.
The LeBron fanatics would rush to blame Love when the Cavaliers lost. The LeBron haters were quick to martyr Love as the poor guy who was always being blamed for James’ shortcomings.
I feel worst for Kevin Love. All he did was swallow crap for four years, take the blame for everything, never complained once, and the thanks he gets from LeBron is a flaming bag of crap roster to play with because LeBron would never commit more than one year at a time.
— Bruce Hooley (@BHOOLZ) July 2, 2018
Meanwhile, Love just produced All-Star numbers (17.1 points and 10.0 rebounds per game over the last four years) and helped his team win games.
Now that LeBron is in L.A., Love is once again the No. 1 option and leader of a team; something he hasn’t been since he was with the Minnesota Timberwolves. Will he end the arguments and be universally considered a superstar?
When Love led the Wolves, he was putting up MVP-caliber stats, but his teams were bad. With LeBron (and Kyrie Irving) in Cleveland, Love’s stats went down, but he was competing for championships.
If nothing else, playing with LeBron put Love under the spotlight. This upcoming season will be different, as the Cavs only have two national TV games. It’ll be hard for Love to convince his critics that he’s a superstar if they rarely see him play.