NBA: Kevin Love's Historic Season Should Be Rewarded With the 2011 MVP Award

Now, before you send me hate mail and start calling me a moron, do me a favor and read beyond the headline. 

I concede that Derek Rose and the Bulls are having a great year.  The same can be said for LeBron James and the Heat, Kevin Durant and the Thunder and Amar’e Stoudemire and the Knicks.

Kevin Love and, um, well, Kevin Love is having an historic season—one that needs to be recognized with the 2011 MVP trophy. 

Through the first 65 games, Love is averaging 20.9 points and 15.7 rebounds for the otherwise hapless Timberwolves. 

In doing so, Love has become one of just five men since 1983 to average at least 15 rebounds while playing in at least 65 games.

The other men?

Ben Wallace '02-'03 (15.4), Kevin Willis '91-'92 (15.5), Moses Malone '82-'83 (15.3) and Dennis Rodman (who accomplished the feat three times in '91-'92, '93-'94 and again in '97-'98 at the age of 36); that’s pretty good company to be in.  

Of the men on this list, the 22-year-old Love is by far the youngest to accomplish this feat.  For comparison, the next youngest was Ben Wallace, who was 28 in the 02-03 season.

In addition to his heavy workload on the boards, Love has managed to also lead his team in scoring.  The only other player on our list to have done that is Malone.

Malone is a basketball hall of famer and was the first player to come to the NBA straight from high school.  Malone set the record of 51 straight double-doubles (which Love tied on Monday) and averaged 24.5 points and 15.3 rebounds per game for the 82-83-world champion Philadelphia 76ers. 

While it’s true Love’s gaudy numbers have not translated to wins for Minnesota, who sits at 15-50 and last place in the Western Conference, people who have played the game or true fans of the sport realize just what kind of season this kid is having. 

Rebounding is something that takes an incredible amount of effort, hustle, desire and energy—all things that, over the course of an 82-game season on a non-competitive team, are almost always lost.

Don’t believe me? Check the numbers. 

Only one other time since the '82-'83 season has a 15-plus rebound per game guy been on a losing team, and that was Willis with the '91-'92 Atlanta Hawks—who were respectable at 38-44 and just two games out of a playoff spot. 

Love is playing every night knowing that, in all likelihood, he is going to lose.  He has literally nothing to motivate him or to play for other than his pride.  That alone makes him the MVP in my book. 

Not satisfied yet?  Consider this:

Two of the five guys to average at least 15 rebounds per game since '83 ended up winning the title the same year (Rodman and Malone).  It is much easier to rebound consistently at a high level night in and night out when you know that your efforts are not in vein. 

Another factor one must consider is the overall difficulty of Love’s nightly task.  The third-year forward is the only true threat on either side of the ball for the last-place Timberwolves, and he has absolutely zero help when it comes to boxing out and rebounding. 

While Michael Beasley does average an impressive 19.2 points per game, he does almost all his scoring in one-on-one situations.  He does virtually nothing to draw attention away from Love, thus failing to provide the kind of support he needs to help drag up the all-important win total. 

As a result of this lack of support, Love is forced to—and more times than not successfully does—face down two to three guys hounding him at all times to secure rebounds.

Malone and Willis certainly saw their share of doubles and perhaps triples, although much less frequently than what Love deals with, simply because they had hall-of-fame teammates like Julius Erving and Dominique Wilkins who demanded double and sometimes triple teams themselves. 

Rodman and Wallace, on the other hand, were role players who did not draw as much attention due to their offensive limitations.  As a result, they were able to focus on defending and rebounding while their offensively talented teammates (Michael Jordan, Scottie Pippen, Chauncey Billups and Richard Hamilton) drew all the crowds and handled the lions' share of the scoring. 

As for 2011 MVP candidates like Rose, James, Durant and Stoudemire?  They all play on vastly deeper and more talented rosters than Love does, and I would argue they are also having far less impressive seasons than the third year pro. 

Nine out of 10 times, I agree with the conventional wisdom that an MVP must come from a contending team.  This is especially true in basketball, where star players win-loss record is judged and evaluated more critically than in other sports due to the impact that just one player can have on a team’s season.  That being said, this season is number 10. 

Love is truly having the type of season that happens less than once a generation.  He should not be punished for playing in basketball Siberia on a team full of kids and castoffs.  There is no guarantee that Love will ever repeat this feat again; remember, in the last 28 years only Rodman has managed it more than once.

If we fail to recognize this truly great season with an MVP award now, we risk losing it to the seldom-traveled abyss that is NBA history in the future. 

Ok, I’m done. 

Now you can start sending me that hate mail and calling me a moron.