FanPost

Kevin Love to Chicago Makes Cleveland the favorites in the East

The Chicago Bulls have proposed a trade for Kevin Love that would send Taj Gibson, Doug McDermott, and Euro League star Nikola Mirotic to Minnesota, according to Chris Sheridan.

I think this trade would actually hurt the Bulls and gives the Cavs an edge in the Eastern Conference. Chicago has already increased their offensive potential by adding collegiate star McDermott, but they also get a lift from Mirotic, the MVP of the Spanish League's King Cup for Real Madrid. Both are unproven in the NBA but the potential for immediate contribution is promising. The depth they have built this off season would be devastating if this trade went down.

Now Kevin Love is a spectacular offensive player and a double-double machine on any given night, but if we dig a little deeper we can see that the trade not only weakens the depth of the playoff contending Bulls but also weakens them at power forward. The main player in the proposed trade for Kevin Love is power forward Taj Gibson. His dedication to defense as well as his scoring off the bench is instrumental to their success.

If we just look at the box score it appears that Love would be an upgrade over Gibson with averages of 26.1 points and 12.5 rebounds. If we look deeper and compare their touches and points per touch it becomes clearer that Love's production is linked to his usage as the primary scoring option in Minnesota. However, Gibson is coming off the bench and is not the Bull's number one scoring option. Even though he doesn't have nearly as many offensive touches as Love, they still have identical points per touch at .30 and almost identical points per touch in the half court (see chart below). This is impressive for Gibson considering that he didn't have one 3-pointer throughout the entire 2013-14 season while Love made 190 3-pointers at a 37% rate. Obviously, Gibson makes better use of the limited touches he had considering all his baskets made were 2-pointers.

If we look at Gibson's productivity in the 2013-14 postseason, his offensive production increased substantially. Taking into consideration all players with at least 200 touches, he had the most points per touch in the playoffs at .46 and ranked second with .72 points per touch in the half court. I think it is clear that Gibson is greatly undervalued as an offensive weapon considering his usage versus that of Love as Minnesota's primary scoring option.

MIN per game Touches per game Total Touches Front Court Touches per game Time of Possession (min) Close Touches per game Elbow Touches per game PTS per game PTS Per Touch PTS Per Half Court Touch

Taj Gibson (CHI)

28.8 44.1 3616 26.8 1.0 6.2 3.9 13.0 0.30 0.49

Kevin Love (MIN)

36.5 86.2 6638 49.2 2.4 6.7 11.2 26.1 0.30 0.53

Taj Gibson (CHI) (PLAYOFFS)

30.8 40.0 200 25.2 0.9 2.8 3.8 18.2 0.46 0.72

More importantly, however is the impact that trading Taj Gibson for Kevin Love will have on the defensive side of the ball. Chicago led the NBA in points allowed per game at 91.8, while Minnesota ranked 25th surrendering 104.3. They clearly have different styles of play but a big part of it has to do with Minnesota's inability to defend at the rim. Adding Love in addition to the newly signed Pau Gasol will limit Chicago's ability to protect the rim.

Let us compare a players steals, blocks, and their opponents FG% at the rim (FGP) so we can see how the differences could effect the Bulls. Neither Kevin Love nor Minnesota teammate Nikola Pekovic are stalwarts on defense. Love's strong rebounding numbers are misleading; his opponents FGP at rim is 57.4% which is one of the worst among big men with any considerable playing time. Pekovic isn't much better allowing opponents 55.2% FGP at rim.

Gibson had a very impressive FGP at rim of 45.7% which bested teammate and defensive MVP Joakim Noah who had a FGP of 46.8%. Gibson also had almost 3 times as many blocks as Love with significant less playing time.

The Bulls have already signed Pau Gasol whose defensive numbers resemble those of Nikola Pekovic. Trading Love for Gibson would make it difficult to hide Love's defensive inefficiencies when both Gasol and Love are on the court together. A lineup with Love and Gasol is one that is could be similar to Minnesota's and their poor ranking (25th) in points allowed per game in 2013-14.

STL per game BLK per game Total BLK Opp FGM at Rim per game Opp FGA at Rim per game Opp FGP at Rim

Taj Gibson (CHI)

0.5 1.4 112 2.4 5.2 45.7%

Joakim Noah (CHI)

1.2 1.5 121 3.7 7.8 46.8%

Kevin Love (MIN)

0.8 0.5 35 5.2 9.1 57.4%

Pau Gasol (LAL)

0.5 1.5 92 5.2 9.6 54.6%

Nikola Pekovic (MIN)

0.6 0.4 23 3.5 6.4 55.2%

I am not saying the Taj Gibson is better than Kevin Love because they do different things. Ultimately, people are falling in love with Love's offensive prowess and I'm sure he would perform well in Chicago with a healthy Derrick Rose and defensive MVP Noah, but I think the defensive inefficiencies that the Bulls would sacrifice in this trade for Gibson along with the young offensive weapons they signed this off-season are too much to lose and weakens the Bulls' current roster and puts the Cleveland Cavaliers out in front as the favorites to win the East.

This is a Fan-Created Comment on FearTheSword.com. The opinion here is not necessarily shared by the editorial staff at FearTheSword