Miami Heat: Why has Kevin Love fit so well? | Five on the Floor

Miami Heat: Why has Kevin Love fit so well? | Five on the Floor

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Got it all B y’all seen the block stop with one hand and Pat Trust this F have the guts we here to bring the heat y’all can hang it up welcome to five on the floor a daily Insider show on the Miami Heat and the NBA featuring Ethan scholet Greg sander

And Alex Toledo plus others from the five reason Sports Network all right welcome back to five on the floor here’s today’s floor plan I got Greg sander you can follow him at Greg sander I’ve got Brady Hawk you can follow him at Brady Hawk 305 make sure

To check out the other episode that we did over the weekend Greg and myself went through the Eastern conference to take a look at the tiers of teams we separated them into four teams which teams might make moves which teams might be making moves to go backwards and

Should there be a concern of the Miami Heat getting passed by some of these teams that are making moves the New York Knicks are already 4-0 with OG anobi so we’ll see if the heat can ever get healthy but whether they do or they don’t do they need to move we covered it

In that episode today we’re going to talk about one person in particular and I feel like we’ve neglected him this year honestly uh We’ve not done an episode on just this player since they acquired him off a buyout last year now we did episodes you know we we talked

About him his contribution Etc what he’s meant to the locker room but I want to say one thing from the very start as we talk about Kevin Love I was wrong about him like not that I didn’t think he could help this team but I didn’t think he’d help this

Team this much and I will say that I think my judgment was colored a little bit by the fact that I covered him in Cleveland for a year when I was with Bleacher Report and I was sent uh to the tundra because LeBron decided to leave Miami which is something he never should

Have done because he’d had more than just two Titles since if he had stayed with the heat but I got sent up to Cleveland I had something in my contract which said that I would be Miami base but that did not prude preclude them from putting me up in a hotel and I

Happened to stay actually in a hotel that had condos at the top and among those who had condos in that building building at the time were Johnny Manzel Kevin Love Kobe Alman uh and Larry Drew and several others either associated in some way with Cleveland sports and so sound like a

Party well there was there was one it’s Cleveland right so there ain’t too many places to go they had this one club in the middle of this hotel condo area I can’t remember the name of it but everybody ended up there uh one way or

The other and if you went to the gym you would pretty you would run into Brendan Haywood in the gym like that’s kind of where this was because again there aren’t that many places to go in Cleveland but when I covered Kevin in Cleveland I will say I didn’t really get

To talk to him much to be honest um I wasn’t used to the Cleveland PR staff and they were not they didn’t sort of facilitate things quite the way that they do in Miami or at least make the players talk on a regular basis and so

Like LeBron I would go up there LeBron would talk once a week uh you know sometimes you know if he didn’t have games I’m talking about off of practices whereas in Miami he talked twice a day sometimes to the media and Kevin and Kyrie I I think were sort of skeptical

Of anybody who was outside of that uh particularly Kyrie but outside of that circle at the time particularly someone who was coming from Miami so I didn’t really get a lot of interaction uh with Kevin and I didn’t see him as the person that I think we’ve seen here he was not

Nearly as jovial um he seemed kind of a little bit Sullen distant uh under a lot of pressure and I talked to him about that uh for the podcast we did with him at FAU at training camp this year where he talked about the differences between here and there and the different stages

Of his career but that was the whole fit in fit out stuff with LeBron the passive aggressive thing could could Kevin Love be Chris Bosch I contributed to some of that with a piece that I wrote uh after I spoke to BOS so I didn’t expect this

Kevin Love right yeah I didn’t expect this Kevin Love I I really didn’t um but he’s been tremendous in the locker room and you know I’m working on a piece about dunan Robinson and Duncan talking about how much Kevin has meant to him but it’s also the on court stuff because

It’s one thing to be really good in the locker room if you’re Udonis Haslam and all of that stuff is established right like you’re an icon on the team in the city in the community with the organization so if you don’t contribute very much on the court anymore except

For some silly Heat fans who are upset about a roster spot nobody cares you’re you’re providing Your Role to the team in other ways right but if you’re coming from somewhere else from Minnesota Cleveland Etc you have to do something on the court to show that you can still

Play if you’re gonna have carry that kind of sway with other players yeah and here’s the thing Brady he has I mean I’m looking at his numbers for this year okay this is a player that most thought was washed okay like Cleveland cut him loose like he wanted to be cut loose but

They decided they just didn’t want anything to do with him anymore they could use him right now okay his perect 36 numbers this season per 36 minutes 19 points 13 rebounds and five assists his numbers in Cleveland were 19.7 points a little under 12 rebounds and under three

Assists he’s actually producing at a higher level per minute here than he did over his time in Cleveland during which he was still a star I mean he played in Cleveland for nine seasons so yes there were a couple of tailoff Seasons but at the beginning of that he was there Chris

Bosch and and he’s and that and yet his numbers this year per minute are even or better with what he produced over the course of a nine season uh stretch in Cleveland why what’s working Brady well I’d say number one it’s funny because the initial thing you thought he

Was going to provide was shooting and he’s done a good bet at bit of that on this this recent stretch uh and I was talking about kind of before we started this that is bear shooting numbers have not been as good as you may think they’ve been like I think he’s catching

Shoot numbers at 33% uh but it’s more about his impact like to your to your point it’s more about the other stuff that he’s doing where last year he came out and pretty much said I’m going to be or he used him as a pick and pop guy they’re like okay

We can open up Jimmy Butler’s Lanes we can use him in these lineups they could just pop out to the three in a in a rotation that did not have any guys that were popping out to the three as bigs this year they basically said okay he’s

Has a kind of a good couple months under his belt he has a big playoff run under his belt let’s you start using him in these different ways and now like he’s getting so many open looks from three because he’s doing all this other stuff and the other stuff includes he’s he’s

Uh getting guys flying out of him and he’s driving to the basket he’s doubled his free throw attempts uh I was looking at his stuff you know inside the paint less than 10 feet from the basket he’s shooting 74% less than 10 feet from the basket like that is just an insane

Number it’s not that it’s High super high volume he’s not taking a ton of super tough shots but it doesn’t matter 74% is 74% down there uh and then obviously the collapsing that he’s doing you know when he’s getting putting his head down at times uh they were doing

You know when he got in a flow the other night they were running stuff for him in the mid post and he had a really big basket where he like turned and like shot over the top of somebody and banked it in it’s like they just start putting

Him in these new spots where it’s like okay they can move him around and they can be versatile with it so it’s it’s just been huge then you go to the defensive side of things which I think is probably the biggest jump of why it’s possible to do what he’s doing this year

Where last year it was Blitz Blitz Blitz it was every time he came off the screen he was just it was so much recovering it was some so hard for the heat defense to keep running around trying to make up for this for the fact that he’s trying

To recover now they’re pretty much he’s been playing a lot of drop and he’s done a pretty good job at it number two he’s played in a whole lot of Zone which I don’t think we we were surprised about but the thing that I keep talking about

Is one of the hardest things to do is rebound in the zone and he has had zero problems with that and I that shouldn’t be a surprising fact because he is such a good rebounder but it doesn’t matter because the whole goal is to try to find

You know find a body and go up and get a rebound he’s just can in cleaning the boards to your point about what was it 13 rebounds or something per 36 like it’s incredible so you add all that in together with the fact that you look at

Some of the onoff numbers and this the last thing I want to mention before before I go back to you you guys to kind of talk about the other parts of this we constantly used to talk about the guy behind bam in the in the onoff numbers

Being so horrible then you look at it this year where the offensive rating with him on the court is 119 which is a team best then you say to yourselves okay what about the defense a team best 109 defensive rating so like he is leading the analytics and advanced

Analytics and on the court stuff and on the offensive and defensive end that’s how good the lineups have been around him and it’s funny because you look at the the love bam combo I think it was like a 109 offensive raing and 106 defensive raing with bam his real damage

Has been as the back of five his real damage has been in these other lineups where it’s just a spread offense and he’s kind of just playing the role of letting everybody else go so that has been huge for this team the the thing I keep talking about is now that you know

That he can do it you have to try to find time to rest this guy you have to try to not burn this guy out by March because they’re gonna need him come playoff time and the crazy thing about these numbers is the guy that he plays the

Best with on this team is Jimmy Butler and Jimmy hasn’t been out there for a lot of that especially recently I mean Jimmy’s going to miss the next game uh as well and Greg I think when we look at this as buyout editions go Chris Anderson was not a buyout Edition by the

Way I know people are saying that’s the best buyout Edition he he wasn’t really bought out he was just a free agent at that point he was there was some some personal things uh that that the he had to look into and they said they took

Some time uh before they brought him in I think you can argue that Chris Anderson over the past 15 years has been the best midseason non trade Edition I think that’s a fair way to put this but as far as buyouts go like you don’t get

A guy like this like I I mean you’re you’re hoping to really get like that’s as good as it’s been right and that that flamed out in the playoffs like he was good for a little bit and he was awful in playoffs he couldn’t shoot and they

Didn’t bring him back right so like this guy they wanted to bring back and as a player option and at the end of this episode we’ll get into how they should do that right because I I I think that that Sunday should be done but we’ve talked

So much about the backup big situation right like you know that they got to get somebody behind bam and this is kind of what Brady’s getting into here which is all right so you know last year you know it’s been Zeller it’s been deadmond it’s been all these guys that you you’re

Hoping to squeeze a few months out of them and then it’s like declining benefits as you go forward you know this year Thomas Bryant looks like the same thing to be honest and Orlando Robinson you know is putting up 43 and 10 in in G league but they don’t seem to trust him

For extending minutes at this level he’s kind of caught in between he’s too good for G League at this point but he’s I I I don’t feel like they want to give him the usual 10 just say here’s your 10 to 15 minutes they would be kind of screwed

Without Kevin Love right now I feel like uh not only that uh Orlando Robinson just so that everyone remembers the 10th is his guarantee date as we’re recording this it’s the seventh so that’s something to watch um couple things that jumped out at me about Kevin

Love Before We pivot to the back half of the episode and what they can do to keep a guy like this around and maybe bring a couple more that can help um in the similar ways because you’re right he has outperformed what we thought he could be

It’s crazy to look 80% of his shots are um coming off of assisted basket so like he’s getting everything off of passes it’s his second highest true shooting percentage of his career this year and to me like to have those two things happening at the same time me means that

You are capitalizing and making everyone better by being as efficient as possible when they are using you as a release valve and so for him to do that combin with the stuff that none of us can quantify on any damn stat sheet the stuff he brought to the locker room when

This team was in a weird place that stuff should not be discounted and so the fact that they him also the fact that they gave him a player option we’ll talk about that going forward and what it means to the team this is a guy that it’s a home run

Acquisition and I want to say I was wrong too I think a lot of it was that he was compared to Chris Bosch and I was being defensive but in retrospect it was petty and honestly Kevin Love Has just as much heat culture as any dude has that’s came

Through this organization and I just didn’t think that that was the the case honestly so to own up to that I shall right now no I should also I mean honestly I was I was coming at a different place not as a fan but as a journalist and I

Always felt that Chris was disrespected in his role in Miami and so when everybody’s saying well Kevin will do what Chris did you know once he’s the third guy with LeBron and Kyrie I was like oh wait that’s not so easy and so I think I took more of that posture on it

And keev struggled with it more than Chris did to be fair I mean Chris had his moments where it took him a little bit of time to assimilate but then once he did and understood what his role was and when he should take over and when he shouldn’t whereas with Kevin it always

Seemed more Awkward I think with LeBron um you know during that period of time but they did win a title together he contributed to that title everybody remembers him chasing Steph Curry out by the three-point line and you know that’s probably the one defensive moment of Kevin’s career that they remember uh but

Before we get to going forward here Brady would you say that this is fair he’s a rooll guy right I mean we agree on this team he’s a rooll guy he’s not a superstar anymore he’s he’s a likely Hall of Famer he believes he’s going to

Be Hall of Famer I think he will be um so if we’re to put all the roll guys in a basket right now okay so take Jimmy bam and Tyler out because they’re not supposed to be roll guys where would Kevin rank as far as contributions of rooll guys this year

Because to me he’s third that’s exactly what I was G to say it’s got to be Duncan and haime that has to be one and two but it’s not a large gap in terms of impact I mean the stuff that haime and Duncan have done have literally led to them

Winning games and have done stuff in the offensive end that feel more loud but 100% it’s like he’s in those lineups though that are causing that like he’s the one that has been forcing that type of stuff and a lot of the issues that we’ve talked about in the past have like

Done a full total flip like when we were talking about them not having a backup big that can def like not that this guy’s an elite Defender but that that’s like a legitimate issue on this team is that the defense behind bam where now it’s the point of attack stuff like

They’re not having the issue with love on the backside then you have the stuff where on the offensive side you know the either the rebounding or the offensive stuff with the shooting in terms of a big like all this stuff has been resolved so 100% like that look at

Here’s another stat talking about because it’s funny you mentioned this because lumping the big guy uh or the role players together I me mened the free throw thing before but I just can’t get over this because the age that this guy’s at and the play style that he

Plays with the fact that the top free throw attempts on the team for the heat per game Jimmy Butler number one bam number two Tyler hero number three Kevin Love number four the fact that he is fourth in free throw attempts on this team is incredible like that’s unbelievable it’s literally just off

Problematic though no it’s incredible I think a lot of what we’re talking about here it’s incredible but it’s problematic because I mean let’s be honest when we’re putting him third among the role guys okay it’s because we can’t put $28 million Kyle Lowry above him right we can’t put near Eastern

Conference Finals MVP Caleb Martin above him because he hasn’t been healthy enough we can’t put Josh Richardson above him because he’s been in out of the lineup and inconsistent when he’s played so some of this is by default and some of these numbers that are pop and

We also and again he’s the backup five in part because it’s not like Thomas Bryant or Orlando Robins and particularly Bryant grabbed the job early in the year so this is why I’m saying like this is ridiculous that he’s doing all this and I give him tremendous

Credit for getting in shape and when I asked him in in training camp you know what weight are you at he just looked at me before he got of the scale and he goes I’m light okay like almost too light like he felt like but you talk about guys who’ve had trouble getting

Into the right condition late in their careers it’s almost like K Love Has followed the Udonis path in that way too like because Udonis got lighter every year if it was only just to be able to compete with these young guys in practice right he’s become their yanis

Essentially and I I also think that’s one of the reasons they didn’t necessarily I know we all wanted them to get drage and I I I I encourage everybody to listen to that episode that Greg and I did but I think it’s another reason they felt they didn’t need to um

Right because right because they did have Kevin Love to kind of replace the ud thing so you didn’t need Goran uh necessarily to do that all right we’re going to go to the other side of this and see where this goes before we do want to mention a great sponsor five

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Can shop for the line that you want that makes it different also we give you $20 to play if you use our code again it’s five RSN or five reasons and our tournaments are much less than that so check it out better edge.com use the codes five RSN or five reasons all right

So let’s get to it um I’ll go to Greg and then we’ll close with this with Brady on this let’s let’s look ahead here he’s got a player option right I think the heater fine if he opts into that yeah so his contract’s at 3.8 million and he’s at a player option for

Four million uh all these guys have player options by the way if we if we’re looking at it Caleb Martin who won’t opt in Kevin Love player option Josh Richardson player option um so I think that that that’s interesting that you’ll see all those guys with decisions to

Make um Thomas Bryant even has a player option I I know everyone’s not gonna love that that’s why I think the Orlando Robinson guarantee date is so interesting right now and I’m just I’m plugging that here as we go along Kevin Love will be back next year I think he

Will probably end his career in Miami I think this will be the final years of him kind of leading the locker room so that that’s kind of how I see that going and I think it’ll be welcome I wouldn’t expect the same level of production maybe next year but I don’t think that

That would be fair to um and and it’s not that he will be a worst player it’s that I would imagine that they’re not going to necessarily need him to play like this but maybe that’s an assumption I shouldn’t make and when I say play like this I mean take on such a

Prominent role in the rotation the one concern I would have if you want the heat to keep him uh is I would continue to watch Phoenix he he did uh he did kind of explore that this off season and I didn’t realize how close he and James

Jones are uh general manager of course with fedix who was with the heat for a while and we all know him from growing up here in South Florida and also University of Miami uh JJ spoke at his wedding and uh and actually Kevin uh named his daughter uh after James Jones

That’s how close they are they became close in Cleveland uh during that period of time that I’m talking about when LeBron brought JJ and Mike Miller up there so I would watch I would watch Phoenix uh for him next year I don’t think he’ll go to a cold weather place I

Know the one thing about this he’s not going to go to a place where he’s not comfortable with management he and I have had some off the record conversations about the NBA this is why I like having veterans in the locker room because they’ve been through some things and they’ll honestly talk about

Some things and I can tell you he’s not going to want to go to a bleep show like that’s the he it’ll it’ll be the Heat or somebody like JJ who we trust or another organization like a San Antonio if they were further along something like that that’s a respected organization he’s not

Going to some of these other places but Brady I want to get to this here before we close and we thank our sponsors tub culture.com make sure you check that out and also better Edge use code five RSN or five reasons um what can be expected

For him in the playoffs because I know you’ve talked about this which is preserving him for that right okay so you’re preserving him potentially for match ups with Milwaukee Boston Philadelphia if he’s going to be your backup five uh and you know giving you the minutes when Bam’s not in there

Primarily so you’re talking a 12 to 15 minute run maybe at the most in the playoffs because Bam’s minutes typically go up to 35 to 37 although actually SPO hasn’t raised him that much in the playoffs the past couple years we’ve actually we’ve actually uh you know

Critiqued SPO on that a little bit for not giving bam 40 minutes but how would you uh how would you kind of split up those minutes and what would be expectation level for Kevin against those teams so there’s definitely the possibility of him matching up like adding porzingis in Boston I mean it

Makes things easier to kind of have that extra guy that can uh number one guard those guys but number two like be able to pull some of these guys away from the basket like we’ve talked about that in the past and that’s how Miami always ends up coming back to that in the

Playoffs we saw it last year in Milwaukee this wasn’t including Kevin Love in This part but when they basically won the series off playmaking with bam and pulling their Milwaukee’s big men like away from the rim and kind of winning the game uh in game five that’s what they’re always going to do

So Kevin Love could end up being a pretty big part of that uh and both those teams are are kind of ways that they could do that the issue is I just don’t see a lot of love bam like being possible in the playoffs because of what

You mentioned because of the fact that if you’re trying to eat up a large amount of minutes that is probably going to be around what you said around 12 to 15 you’re going to need that to be love like you’re going to need there there’s no other option so you can’t really put

Those guys together now do they have to play together not really I’m not even that much in love with the fact that that you have to do that because I actually am a much bigger fan of the love Jimmy stuff we literally did a whole segment in the last P podcast

Trying to solve the heat transition stuff it literally just means love to Jimmy like that’s solving it that’s literally their entire transition game that in playoff games it’s like just put those guys together and try to get out on the break and try to do certain stuff

Like think about the game last year in New York where I think it was game one where they literally just won the game off them him turning the tides with the outlet passes like that’s the stuff that you need for him you you need him as

Much as people may not think he’s a five he is a five at this stage he’s definitely a five in Miami definitely a five in Miami because we hey would highest spit a five in Miami so there’s going to be different things they can go

To now are they going to be able to stay in zone as long in a playoff series with the constant adjustments probably not that he’s probably going to have to play in a little bit more drop but as I said earlier I haven’t been had a much of a

With him in drop like I had a problem last year when he was blitzing a ton because I felt like teams were figur it out now if you’re going to play more drop in the playoffs your point of attack Defenders have to be a lot better ideally they’re healthier but they also

Have to be a lot better because even when they’ve been healthy it hasn’t been great so they’re gonna have to figure that stuff that’s minor things you’re G have to figure out when you get there but the big thing for me and you mentioned it before is literally just

Making sure this guy has his fresh legs because we’ve seen this before every single time with their backup bigs I don’t care if it’s Kevin Love or not the the first year with deadmond he looked I say it all the time in that 2021 year where he got swept he was their best

Player in the playoff series he literally was because he was the freshest he literally had fresh legs and looked looked great they brought him back and then kind everything went downhill uh Cody Zeller comes in he looked really good early on everybody was literally saying to tie this back

Into this podcast that he was the better acquisition than Kevin Love like that was what everybody was talking about at the time and now you come back to this and now you have the same thing with Kevin Love where he looks great but you need him to look fresh in the playoffs

You did not need him dra in you do not need him uh because we’ve seen at times even with his shooting that sometimes he’s short on his shots because he doesn’t have his legs you need him to have his legs so I’m I’m interested to

See how they do it because they have too many injuries to just Le take the guy out if he’s healthy but if it feels like they’re going to get to a point of around All-Star break when Jimmy starts to come back that they’re gonna have to start giving this time this guy some

Time off and I’ll say this too for those who critique the the organization and we do it at times as well you go back to last trade deadline where teams gave up five second round picks for players like Jay Crowder right Kevin Love has produced more for Miami than Jay Crowder

Has produced for Milwaukee Kevin Love to the heat was worth two or three second round picks in terms of the production that you’ve gotten from him they gave up nothing they gave up they right they they G they gave up nothing for great point right

Who in per 36 minutes is giving them 19 and 133 it’s uh it’s you know again we I understand frustrations about certain things but then some decisions get forgotten and I this one worked out I think better than any of us anticipated because you’re right we did a podcast I

Believe we did a podcast that Zeller has contributed more than love and uh I I would I would I would be willing to bet that most of the guys that all those second round picks were traded for last year with the exception of crowder who’s hardly played and now he’s getting back

In are not with their same teams anymore and I could guarantee you that the majority of buyout guys from last year are not with their same teams anymore and we’re we’re talking about Kevin Love and wanting him to come back another year for basically two and a half

Seasons with a Miami Heat so it’s a pretty good acquisition and we felt it deserved an episode all right check us out from the arena no Jimmy Butler again against Houston on Monday night but we’ll have full coverage Brady myself and Alex from the arena and Greg will be

On the podcast overnight uh make sure of course that you sign up to off the floor have a good one everybody thank you for listening to the five on the floor on the five sports network after all someone needs to listen to my dad

With role players and even stars in and out of the lineup, veteran Kevin Love has been one of the constants this season, even at an advanced stage in his career. Ethan, Greg and Brady discuss why he’s worked out so well, and how to keep getting this much out of him — this season and maybe next.

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