BasketballAdding Love makes all-star game better

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Kevin Love of the Minnesota Timberwolves was added to the All-Star team by NBA commissioner David Stern.

It was good to see NBA commissioner David Stern quickly add Minnesota Timberwolves forward Kevin Love to the Western Conference All-Star team on the weekend.

If there was a blatant snub this year, it was Love.

While he plies his trade for a young, putrid team, there's no denying his game is among the league's elite. 

This isn't a case of a mid-range player putting up big stats for a bad squad. He's the real deal - and it's not just his double-doubles, which sit at 43 this season (including 37 straight) through Monday. Consider that many of those double-doubles came in just one half of a game.

Also take into account that no player in NBA history has ever averaged more than 12 rebounds a game while shooting higher than 40 per cent from three in a season. Love is currently pulling down 15.6 boards a game and shooting more than 43 per cent from beyond the arc.
 
And when you get into his three 30/20 games this season, you're coming across names like Shaquille O'Neal and Charles Barkley in terms of frequency comparisons. He's also tops in NBA player efficiency rating.

So bad team or not, it was understandable that Love didn't really make an attempt to hide his disappointment when he was passed over for the all-star berth last week. In fact, when asked about the players he preferred to see in all-star games when he was younger, Love didn't mince any words.
 
"I always wanted to see the best players, the highlight players. I didn't care what teams they were on," he said before the Wolves' game in Toronto Friday. "We'll see what happens with the commissioner's pick," he said.

Then, minutes after that media scrum, Wolves coach Kurt Rambis informed Love that Stern had indeed named him as an injury replacement for Yao Ming.

"I looked around like 'Is Ashton Kutcher about to pop up in here?'" is how Love later described his reaction.

Let's face it. All-star games in any sport mean very little. However for players in Love's shoes on a bad team, it's a nod of respect. Despite his famous bloodlines, Love is a notoriously hard worker. The nephew of Beach Boy Mike Love and son of former NBA player Stan Love - who gave him the middle name "Wesley" after close friend Wes Unseld - Kevin often studied video as a youngster of players from way before his time, like Unseld and Bill Walton.
 
"You have to fight for everything in this league," Love said. He's also still optimistic about the core group in Minnesota. "We're the youngest team in the league and we're only going to get better from here on."

Raptors in England

The Raptors did manage to defeat Love and the Timberwolves Friday night, putting the brakes on a brutal 13-game losing streak. Yet for some reason the only thing I can think of in regards to the Raps right now is their two games against the New Jersey Nets in London, England, less than a month from now.

Consider this: As of Monday, the Raptors and Nets are the bottom two teams in the Atlantic Division, with a combined winning percentage of .282. This is what the NBA is selling to the Brits.

Some good news for the Raps this week was the return to practice of power forward Reggie Evans for the first time since November. While he's not expected back in game action until after the all-star break, he gives the team personality - "it feels good just to get a sweat going ... to look at your shirt and see a dark area," he said after practice Monday - and he makes Andrea Bargnani better.
 
A guy I work with adroitly pointed out this week that it would be awesome if Bargnani and Evans could somehow be merged into one human being - a hybrid player that could also increase cap space. Oddly enough, that imaginary player's game would not be totally unlike Kevin Love's.

Hall of Fame decisions

Last week, Canada Basketball announced its candidates for nomination into the Canadian Basketball Hall of Fame. The list includes the late, legendary Toronto basketball booster Bernie Offstein, as well as Kelly Boucher, Bob Hall, Ray Jones, Howard Kelsey, Joanne Sargent, Dr. Andrew Pipe, Mike Smrek (Port Robinson, Ont., represent!), Angela Straub, John Weiland and the 2000 men's Olympic team.

The latter finished seventh in those Summer Games in Sydney. While it marked Steve Nash's coming out party and Jay Triano's great coaching job after being ignored by then-NBA players Rick Fox and Jamaal Magloire, I'm not sure if seventh place deserves Hall of Fame consideration, no matter what the sport and country.

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