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Jerry West 'threatened to resign' if Golden State traded for Kevin Love in 2014
One shouldn’t use these Finals as an opportunity to dismiss Kevin Love. Pardon the expression, but he’s figuratively fighting for his reputation with one arm tied behind his back. Love, in his first year with Cleveland and first in the postseason, didn’t even make it out of the first round this season prior to suffering a nasty shoulder injury against the Boston Celtics, a team that made the seventh seed in the Eastern playoffs while winning as many games this season that Love’s postseason-less Timberwolves won last year.
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Love became a Cavalier, after a summer’s worth of signs, after being dealt from Minnesota to Cleveland for a package that included expected (and eventual) Rookie of the Year Andrew Wiggins, and Chris Grant-era casualty Anthony Bennett. Prior to that trade, Love was rumored to be headed to Cleveland’s combatants, the Golden State Warriors, in exchange for Klay Thompson, and David Lee. That’s what Minnesota wanted, at least.
One member of Golden State’s award-winning front office, however, was having none of it. From Chris Ballard’s typically must-read feature at Sports Illustrated, here is NBA legend and W’s head consultant Jerry West throwing himself in front of any notion of the idea of losing Thompson:
Perhaps West’s biggest contribution came last summer, though, when, along with Kerr, he adamantly opposed a trade centered around Thompson and Love. West argued that trading Thompson would be an enormous mistake. The Warriors were built on defense and Love, while a skilled offensive player, was a subpar defender. What’s more, West was certain Thompson would continue to improve, giving the Warriors a potential Hall of Fame backcourt for the next decade.
West felt so strongly that, according to one person close to the negotiations, he threatened to resign if the team made the trade. Chances are, West wouldn’t have actually done it—that’s just the way he talks—but when the most successful talent evaluator in league history feels that adamantly about something, it’s probably worth listening.
Speak to the principals today and everyone says it was a group decision, none more forcefully than West. As is his nature, he takes great pains to deflect any credit, praising the work of Myers and Lacob and the rest. Myers points out that, “It’s a lot easier to make suggestions than decisions.” As for Lacob, he dismisses the topic. “There was never, ever a time when we were going to consider trading Klay in that deal,” he says. “Jerry was strong on that, but so was everybody else.”
This may be true. Then again, a source with knowledge of the negotiations counters that, “The deal was done. And Jerry put his foot down.”
Thank goodness for that foot.
Thompson hasn’t exactly been a revolutionary fixture in this season’s Finals, and it’s wrong to denigrate Love as some sort of would-be mistake. As it was last summer, though, the fit just didn’t work out. For both sides, even.
It was known from the minute that LeBron James declined to even mention Andrew Wiggins – the guy that half a dozen NBA teams spent an entire season tanking for – in his return-to-Cleveland essay that Wiggins-for-Love could be a thing. A good thing for both sides, mind you: Minnesota gets perhaps the best player of 2020, and Cleveland gets an All-Star to pair alongside a superstar in James that would turn 30 just before midseason and needed to win, bloody, now.
It speaks to Minnesota coach/el jefe Flip Saunders that he would push for Thompson and Lee over the last two No. 1 picks in the NBA draft, while eventually (needlessly) adding Thaddeus Young to the rotation in the eventual trade. Saunders apparently thought that replacing Love with Lee while placing Thompson in his starting lineup would cram the Wolves into the playoffs. How that roster was supposed to act as a championship core would be anyone’s guess, but clearly the idea was to shoot for 47 wins and ask questions later.
It’s also important to remember that while Thompson averaged 18.4 points per game last season, he seemed well on his way toward acting as an Allan Houston-type that could also give a good effort defending a point guard or two (with varying results). His Player Efficiency Rating last season was right around average, and his rookie contract was about to enter its final season. Wiggins’ ceiling looked far, far higher to everyone but Saunders, who was desperately attempting to end Minnesota’s playoff drought.
Stylistic changes in Golden State’s offense and Thompson’s own talents and dedication led to an All-Star level campaign in 2014-15, as the Warriors soared. And Love, through no fault of his own, looks like someone the Warriors would happily give a miss to in retrospect.
To call Love a better version of David Lee would act as a disservice to both players’ talents and contributions, but the Warriors vaulted to the top of the defensive rankings (and nearly the top of the offensive rankings) behind big forward Draymond Green’s emergence as a do-everything utility player on both ends. Kevin Love would have been fantastic on these Warriors, but the loss of Thompson (with no clear replacement at his position) and expected shuttering of Green’s minutes (remember, it took an early season injury to Lee for new coach Steve Kerr to sign off on Draymond as his guy) would have resulted in a very different Warriors team.
Again, through no fault of Love’s own. The man cannot catch a break. Even Lee, who himself was shuttered to the tune of just 68 postseason minutes over Golden State’s first 17 postseason games, is acting as an odd Golden State X-factor as Love watches from the sideline with his arm in the sling. All while he has to possibly hear about the anecdote about the guy in the NBA’s logo threatening to quit his job if the team that employed him dealt for a 26-and-12 guy (as Love was in 2013-14).
The SI feature details that Jerry West, in retirement some seven years ago, urged his former boss (the late Memphis Grizzlies owner Michael Heisley) to draft Kevin Love with his first lottery pick in the post-Pau Gasol era. The man who somehow acquired Shaquille O’Neal and Kobe Bryant in the same summer, not even working with the benefit of either a scorched earth policy with cap room (O’Neal) or a tank job (Kobe), knows what he’s doing. Still.
Minnesota should be happy with what it got, Golden State be happy with what it has, and despite Wiggins’ clear potential the story in Cleveland is still the same – this team will be fantastic with LeBron, Love, and Kyrie Irving running at full strength in the playoffs. Even if Cleveland bows out in Game 6, with Love watching from the sidelines, this is a win-win-win story that isn’t nearly over yet.
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is an editor for Ball Don't Lie on Yahoo Sports. Have a tip? Email him at KDonhoops@yahoo.com or follow him on Twitter! Follow @KDonhoops