Kevin Love Is Special in Knowing He Is No Dipper, Big E, or Moses

He can sink a shot from far away, well past the three-point line. He can drive past many of the power forwards of today for easy scores. He can post in the blocks and score on anyone in the game.

All those parts of his young game are still developing, but Kevin Love has always been able to gobble up rebounds by the bushel since he got on either an NBA, collegiate, or high school hardwood. On both ends of the floor with a steady consistency not seen for years.

After averaging over 15 rebounds in high school, Love stopped by UCLA for just one season. The 6'10" power forward was an All-American who was named Pac-10 Player of the Year after averaging over 17 points and 10 rebounds in 2007. He also had 23 double-doubles as the Bruins reached the Final Four before losing.

He seemed on his way to finding his name next to Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Bill Walton, and Gail Goodrich on the long list of Bruin legends who are long considered amongst the best basketball players in NCAA history. Yet Love was looking ahead, so he eschewed his last three years of college in favor of the NBA.

Four NBA teams decided not to draft him in 2008. Derrick Rose, Michael Beasley, O.J. Mayo, and UCLA teammate Russell Westbrook were chosen before him. While Rose is having an MVP caliber season right now, and Westbrook is an All-Star, both Beasley and Mayo have been traded and Mayo was almost traded again recently.

The Memphis Grizzlies selected Love, but wanted Mayo. They traded Love to the Minnesota Timberwolves for Mayo. While Mayo scores 16 points a game for his career, the Grizzlies were recently trying to trade the shooting guard, now coming off the bench, after he fought with teammates and was suspended for steroid use.

Beasley is now Love's teammate, having been a salary cap casualty of the Miami Heat's signings of LeBron James and Chris Bosh. With Love handling the post, the athletic Beasley is currently averaging a career high 19.2 points per game.

Beasley still gets his average of just over five rebounds per game, but the Timberwolves do not ask him to circumcise his game by staying in the blocks the way Miami did. On a roster were just two players are older than 25-years old, most are trying to find their niche under the guidance of head coach Kurt Rambis.

Love just broke a doubles-double record set by the incomparable Moses Malone, who set the record in his 1979 MVP season. Malone, who led the NBA in rebounds five times in his career, was coming off a 1978 season where he had an amazing career high of 1,444 rebounds. He was credited with 51 straight double-double games in 1979, the most since the ABA and NBA merged in 1976.

One of the 50 Greatest Players of All-Time, Malone was a 13-time All-Star who never fouled out of a game in his career despite being an upper echelon defender and unstoppable force on the offense end and all over the boards.

Love says his new record should be respected as far as the post-merger modern game, but he certainly understands the history of the game extends well beyond 1976. He understands his place as well.

Now Love has his eyes set on yet another member of the NBA's 50 Greatest Players of All-Time. Elvin Hayes, considered by most the greatest power forward in the history of the NBA, had 55 straight games of double-doubles on 1973.

Hayes was a 12-time All-Star who led the league in rebounding twice and scoring once in his superb career. Though most might recall how no one could prevent the "Big E" from scoring his patented turn-around jumper that had him score 47 or more points five times in his career, Hayes was a great defender with seven games of 10 or more blocked shots as well.

The 1973 season where Hayes had his 55 games, he averaged over 18 rebounds a game. It is the third best average ever by anyone since Wilt Chamberlain retired. Hayes would take his teams to the finals three times in his career, winning once.

“Whether you put it as a modern-day or an ABA-NBA merger, I would say yes (his new record should be respected),” Love said. “But if you’re looking at the grand scheme of things, you’ve got to look at that 227. The Big Dipper. Wilt the Stilt. He’s something special. You’ve got to look at that. Why not go for Elvin then?”

When one tries to describe the greatest player in NBA history, words are not enough to encompass Wilt Chamberlain. Those 227 straight double-double games are a minimum mark that could be doubled, but there are some scorecard issues stretching back that far.

While fans quickly recall the "Stilt" scoring 100 points in a single game in 1962, some forget he averaged an astronomical 50.4 points and 25.7 rebounds per game the season before. It wasn't an anomaly, because Chamberlain averaged 44.8 points and 24.3 rebounds per game in 1962.

The "Big Dipper" led the league in rebounding 11 times in his 15 seasons, including his last year. Chamberlain also led the league in points scored seven times. When people tried to say all he did was score, the legendary "Stilt" quieted critics by leading the NBA in assists in the 1967 season.

What set Chamberlain far and apart from any other fans choice for "Greatest Player Ever" is the fact the NBA desperately tried to stop him with a mountain of rules changes that were directly aimed at him in hopes of slowing Chamberlain down.

Love knows it is highly unlikely he will come anywhere near Chamberlain's 227 games, but passing Hayes on the double-double list would be amazing in itself. Unlike Hayes, Malone, or Chamberlain, Love is accomplishing his feat on a team with 16 wins in 66 games on a team that gets very little media coverage.

He is just 22-years old and in his third season. Love is on pace to get over 1,200 rebounds this year after averaging over nine and 11 rebounds per game in his first two seasons. He is the leader of a young team filled with talent that will only get better with experience.

Love has been playing on a sore knee, but it has not stopped him from trying to do his best. Love said,"Nothing’s really changed about how I feel about the double-double streak or the situation. I just go out there and play hard.”

Maybe when his career ends, fans will still be speaking of him in the same breath as Moses Malone and Elvin Hayes as they are now. Yet Malone and Hayes certainly have to proud of this youngster continuing the legacy of hard work that isn't seen much in the game anymore.

What Love has accomplished is historic, but the most impressive part is seeing a young man grounded in knowing his place and the trail-blazing players before him while not running around with the bloated ego of a pampered prima donna thinking his feces doesn't stink like so many have before him.

A young star who isn't a head case thinking he is the team. These are the players the NBA needs to promote. Especially one who understands, respects, and revels in the history of the game.

Heatles No More : Hey, Hey, They're the Heatees

Here They Come

Crying Down The Street

Shooting Plenty Of Commercials

While They Steadily Get Beat


The only surprise going on in the city of Miami is finding those sheep who actually once believed the team Pat Riley bought could win. As these fair weathered fans hide for cover, it is apparent Heat owner Micky Arison allowed Riley to purchase the "Marx Brothers of Basketball".

Desperation is flying over the franchise like a vulture who thrives off the scraps of hot air and pop references. Ready to swoop when the inevitable conclusion appears much faster than expected.

This vulture has been around since day one, knowing a steady meal will always be readily available unless the team wakes up and humanely kills this Frankenstein they created.

While at Riley has enjoyed success as a coach, his general manager skills need to be questioned. Putting three ball hogs who abhor defense and rebounding on one team is recipe for disaster. Never before in the history of the NBA has this formula worked.

Some teams have tried. The Philadelphia 76ers found this out in the 1970's when George McGinnis and World B. Free fought for shots, while Julius Erving was doing what Dwayne Wade is doing now in trying to make it work by sacrificing parts of his own game for the sake of teamwork.

Instead of whining for help last year, perhaps Wade should have packed up his talents and gone home. Though Chicago has less women in bikinis running around their streets than Miami, the duo of Wade and Derrick Rose probably would have worked much better than things are now with Wade and LeBron James.

Arison and Riley wanted Wade happy for good reason. He is the leader of the team who pours his heart and soul into the game. He has been beat up throwing his body in the paint, but it did help the Heat win a title in 2006.

Some critics think those aches and pains have caught up to the 29-year old, but Wade has adjusted his game to appease two newcomers who were missing the key phrase "winner" on their resumes. This strategy may pay off down the road, but the holes the team has widens each time Wade takes a back seat.

When James pompously stated he was "taking his talents to Miami" in an overblown production number thrown by paparazzi instead of journalists, this group of media immediately anointed the Heat champions and went as far to predict the team would set records yearly for wins in a season.

This noise increased because Chris Bosh had gotten on board the day before James right as Wade committed to staying in Miami. Yet through all the blustering hype, no one chose to look at the obvious weaknesses.

Not the weaknesses of the rest of the roster, though some paparazzi liked to say it didn't matter who filled those roles for the new unstoppable force in the NBA, but the deficiencies on their three highly paid players. Especially meshed together.

The problem with the signings is that Miami basically hired three shooting guards. Though Wade and James, who love to caress the ball for long periods of time, can do an average job in short spurts at the point, both are at their best crashing the paint off the wing.

Bosh might be near seven foot tall, but his game is far away from the rim to avoid contact to his slight frame. He can help rebound on defenses in inconsistent stretches, but he is not the guy a team wants posting up in the blocks.

While Bosh probably has the best jump shot, none of the three are exactly good shooters. James and Wade thought they would spend this year crashing into the rim, but the good teams just pack the defense in and wait.

The desperation mode in Miami has gotten so bad that Mike Bibby was recently brought in. He can join Juwan Howard, Erick Dampier, Eddie House, Zydrunas Ilgaukas, Jamaal Magloire, and Mike Miller on the long list of Heat players who best days were long, long ago. If this was 2001, instead of 2011, the Heat would have quite a team.

While the fair weathered fans point the blame at the helpless Erik Spoelstra, no head coach could get these three to mesh without at least a season under their belts together. Though a strong return by injured power forward Udonis Haslem would be a big help for Heat rebounds, it may not be enough.

Yet Haslem may end up being the real leader of the Heat. He was a free agent before this season, being offered upwards to $10 million more by other teams, yet he decided to remain in Miami in hopes of winning a championship.

Meanwhile the media will keep calling them the "Heatles", an obvious reference to the legendary musical band The Beatles. But the Beatles were fresh, creative, flexible, and ever changing. They always sought new avenues despite reaching a level of stardom never seen before or since.

Miami has the "Heatees", which is in reference to Beatles rip off band The Monkees. A quartet that late comedian Sam Kinison liked to say,"wasn't even a real group!"

The Heatees aren't even a real team. They are swimming in fluff and unearned hype concocted by a few greedy P.R. men. While not everyone was buying into the image day one, more jump off the rickety band wagon by the day.

The best thing for the Heatees is for their season soon so the superstars can go look in the mirror and decide to dedicate themselves to winning a title by working on their weaknesses in the offseason so they can be at their best and fulfill all expectations next year, including their own.