Minnesota Timberwolves: What if… Kevin Love had never been injured
By Ethan Becker
2012-2013 Season
Kevin Love was coming off the best season of his career in 2012 and was due for a huge extension that season.
What he got instead, was just another one of those little frustrations that added up over the course of his tenure with the organization. Instead of the five-year, $80 million the Minnesota Timberwolves could have offered him, they low-balled him with a four-year, $62 million deal.
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Kevin Love was a star player, coming off his first All-Star appearance and who was on the Olympic team in 2010 and would be on the same team again in 2012. Not offering Love the max was bad business.
Still, we can’t change the past in these, so we work with what we’ve got. And what we’ve got is a fully healthy Love paired with a player in Ricky Rubio who was already making waves.
What’s forgotten is that Love and Rubio were paired together the next season, and the Wolves went 40-42. Not only that, but they had the same coach and a smarter executive under Flip Saunders. However, there are three things that happened.
First, Minnesota continues to let Rubio develop into a star-caliber point guard. Second, they begin to convince Love on the culture of Minnesota, and the promise of more stability. Finally, this season sees a blowup between Love and J.J. Barea. The two players were having a little bit of conflict in real life, but it was mostly avoided due to Love’s injury.
Not here though, here that scorn is allowed to flourish, and in the offseason (after a 38-44 season), Kevin Love makes a statement to the team: You’re making a trade, and it’s either him or me.