Not Love’n this All-Star snub!

First and foremost I am a Timberwolves fan, it would be unfair for me to tell you otherwise. I grew up in Minneapolis and have loved the Wolves my entire life; unfortunately we don’t have a lot to be proud of these days, our team is 11-37, it’s cold as hell and we are still searching for our first all-star since Kevin Garnett.

The last issue is the one I am currently most upset with.

The reserves for the NBA all-star game was announced this week and one crucial player is missing, yup you guessed it that missing player is Minnesota Timberwolves’ big man Kevin Love.

I understand that fans have the right to decide who the starters are; otherwise Yao Ming wouldn’t be starting for the hundredth year in a row.

But there is still no fathomable reason that K-Love shouldn’t be going to Los Angeles with his first career all-star selection. However there is a pile of reasons why he should be in LA in mid February with the best of the best, simply because he is one of the best, and I’m not the only one who thinks so.

“He’s putting up video game numbers.” Oklahoma City superstar Kevin Durant said. Yes he is Kevin, and to be more specific he’s putting up numbers the NBA hasn’t seen since the likes of Moses Malone in the early 80s. For example: his resume performance of 31 points and 31 rebounds earlier this season against the New York Knicks. Hasn’t happened since Malone pulled it off and never will happen again.

Well, unless Kevin Love does it.

But it’s not just his comparisons to basketball immortality that certify has one of the three most deserving players of an all-star selection this season. He’s also averaging an NBA league high of 15.6 rebounds per game, the next closest is Orlando Magic all-star Dwight Howard with a paltry 13.6. Love has three games this season of 30 or more points with 20 or more rebounds in the same game, can you guess how much the rest of the NBA has?

You got it! None! Zero! Zilch! Nada!

So just in case you’re one of the obtuse and dim-witted neanderthals that didn’t vote for Love that includes Tim Duncan, Kevin Durant, Blake Griffin, Kobe Bryant, Yao Ming (by a long shot), Carmelo Anthony, Pau Gasol, Chris Bosh and of course the self-proclaimed king Lebron James who had inferior numbers to K-Love. There is no way you can write a long enough run-on sentence to indicate how much of a travesty this truly is.

Okay, I already know what you’re thinking. You’re probably cooking up some rambling, incoherent rant about how Love only has number because he’s on an awful team and you have to play for a winner to be an all-star. If this is similar to what you are thinking you are a bigger embarrassment to the game of basketball than any comment that Lebron James has made in the past year.

It’s true Love plays for one of the league’s bottom dwellers, which means he is the ONLY player opposing teams are trying to stop. Instead of just having to box out Tim Duncan, he has to handle Duncan and D’Juan Blair when he takes on the San Antonio Spurs. When the Lake show is in town he has to handle Lamar Odom and Pau Gasol and still out rebounds the combined total of the opposition’s frontcourt.

If you want to call me bias go ahead and do it because I am bias, I am biased in favor of the biggest all-star snub in the history of the NBA. Love deserves to be there more so than every other player with the possible exception of Durant based on this season’s credentials:

• Three 30-point/20-rebound games this season, two of them in the same month. Only three other players have ever accomplished that-Charles Barkley, Hakeem Olajuwon, and Shaquille O’Neal are the other three; I guess you could say that’s decent company.
• 22 times this year he’s posted a double-double by the first half, there are only nine other players with 22 total double-doubles this season.
• He has 43 total double-doubles, and a current streak of 34, which is the 2^nd longest streak over the past 25 seasons behind Kevin Garnett and John Stockton; just case he didn’t have enough hall of fame company.
• He launched one of the most creative and comical all-star campaigns ever.
• He has all the numbers.

So no matter what team you cheer for or what band wagon you’re currently riding there is no possible way you can make an argument against Kevin Love, and if you think you can you’re probably the type of person that thought Lebron James’ Nike commercial was cool so do us all favor and keep your mouth shut. Seriously, that’s what you should do.