All in all, Love averaged 28.3 mpg in the first nine games this year and is at 37.0 mpg for everything else beginning with the 31/31 against New York.
Last year, prior to the Darko/Cardinal trade, Love averaged 29.6 mpg in 35 games, and he averaged 27.2 mpg in the 25 games afterward.
Let's flash back to the off-season:
Kahn said he wants coach Kurt Rambis to find "creative and imaginative" ways for two of the first five players selected in the 2008 draft to play together for significant minutes each game next season. But he also admitted there probably will be a competitive battle for the starting power forward job.
Love very reluctantly accepted a sixth-man role for the final two-plus months of last season, but sometimes not without moping. That role was raised again at an exit meeting he had with Rambis in April.
"Kurt mentioned, 'Don't get so caught up in being a sixth man,'" Love said. "I feel like I'm a starter. I want to be a starter. Sixth man is and will be kind of hard for me to accept on this team. If this was the Lakers and Pau Gasol and Andrew Bynum were in front of me, it'd be different.
"We're young and inexperienced. It's tough to see where we're headed. If I get the minutes, I'll always be productive. I just want to win. I want to help win in the Western Conference. We'll see what happens the rest of the offseason. Ask me in four or five months."
Kahn said he never forgets Love is 21.
"Kevin is very impatient, and I'm OK with that," Kahn said. "I was just as impatient at his age, and beyond. His impatience is a good thing because it signals an ambition. He wants everything to happen now. It might not happen right now, but it's going to happen for him."
Who let the coach get away with this insanity? From November 9, 2010:
Asked if he hears the clock ticking, Rambis directed the questioner to Kahn, who said, "I don’t like that we haven’t been competitive on the road, and I recognize it needs to change, but I don’t have a clock. We have to demonstrate over the next several weeks that this will stop.
"If anybody deserves the blame, it would be me — and certainly not Kurt — because I chose to have these players on this team."
Flash forward a few months to Feb 9, 2011:
Taylor also is fine with Wolves President David Kahn, who’s in his second year in charge.
"David went out and got the players that Kurt wanted," Taylor said.
Who can forget this?
I defy anybody to tell me a year ago that they saw this kind of season coming with Kevin. Nobody saw it coming. Who could have seen it coming? Are we ready to make final determinations and judgements on everything that has occurred here in the last 19 months? I think Kevin is the poster child for that.
Just imagine for a moment that these two clowns actually understood what they had in Love before the 2009 draft and what that would have meant for this franchise. Wait, before you do that, grab a vomit bag and take a quick look at Love's per-36 minute stats and tell yourself that the people in charge of your favorite ball club actually thought their best player was a 6th man. Go tell yourself that the people in charge of your favorite ball club had zero clue what type of player their best guy was and it cost them in the 2009 draft by being completely unable to comprehend a) what type of offense he would thrive in, b) what type of guard he should be surrounded by, and c) what he would be able to do in the pick-and-roll/pick-and-pop with Stephen Curry. It absolutely frickin' boggles the mind. Yet, they continue to be allowed to plow through the few remaining assets the team has in its back pocket.
Anywho, it wasn't until the 31/31 game that Rambis was forced to play his best player instead of handing additional minutes to the guy that has led the club to a .194 record since his arrival. Pay no mind to the fact that Love is the better passer, shooter, rebounder, and he turns it over less...no-sir-ee, the Zen Apprentice was going to run things through Darko.
The head of SB Nation, Christopher Gates, has more on why Rambis should be granted his wish and given a ticket back to California.
In tomorrow's Daily Rambis, we find a way in which the Zen Apprentice finds himself in the company of Tim Floyd.
Until later.