VIDEO: Top 5 Kevin Love moments with Timberwolves
Kevin Love makes his return to Minnesota on Saturday night with the Cleveland Cavaliers, and the Timberwolves have already employed a little gamesmanship in the process.
It's been easy to malign Love's six seasons in the Twin Cities; putting up gaudy numbers on a team that averaged fewer than 26 wins a year can do that. Even when he put together a streak of 53 consecutive double-doubles, the narrative tended to derisively label him a great fantasy player.
While he probably won't get the warm reception another Kevin got in his return to the Target Center, it's worth looking back at some of Love's highlights in Minny.
5. Drafted by Grizzlies, traded to Wolves for Mayo
If you want to compare the success of the Timberwolves and the Memphis Grizzlies since 2008, there's no contest. But Memphis swapping Love - the No. 5 selection in the draft that year - for No. 3 pick O.J. Mayo could charitably be called one of the poorer draft-day deals in recent history.
4. Posterizes Vince Carter
In his rookie season, Love showed no fear going up strong on then-Net Vince Carter - a guy better known for doing the dunking than being dunked on.
3. Clips L.A. with buzzer-beating three
He dunks, he rebounds, he shoots threes. This trey beat the Clippers on familiar Los Angeles turf for Love. He was born in Santa Monica and, after growing up in Oregon, attended UCLA.
2. 53-game double-double streak
As mentioned above, the streak Love put together in 2010-11 is taken with a grain of salt by some - in part, legitimately, because a double-double isn't an official NBA statistic. Regardless, it stands as the longest such string of games since the NBA-ABA merger in 1976.
1. 31 points, 31 rebounds in a game
Before the double-double streak began in November 2010, Love put up this 31-point, 31-board night in a win over the New York Knicks - the first 30-30 game in the NBA since 1982.