You knew it was happening with Love. I thought Westbrook would be a little more intelligent about it all. The news they want everyone to know up front: They’re not signing with agents!

Here’s my little retrospective on Love:

In my humble opinion, this beast of a kid had a chance to be a Top 10 all-time college player (in a dream world where he stayed all four years). I specifically chose the picture above because Love was mauled in Shaq-like ways during games this year; he was that good, yet I still think not nearly appreciated.

So Love’s doing the one-and-done thing and making a faint impression upon UCLA’s history and the game of college basketball. He was fun to watch because it almost made you uncomfortable while sitting on your couch: Love looked like he bruised people, and he scored in very ugly ways at times. If you rooted against UCLA at times this year (not hard to do) it was frustrating to see Love get his 18 and 14 in such a workman like way, you couldn’t help but respect his raw ability to get things done the dirty way.

It was astounding how a player with such limited agility and hops was able to get so many rebounds, avoid from being blocked or blocked out (thank the parents for the posterior) and probably account for at least four of UCLA’s wins this year.

Great player with a great name that’s probably leaving one year too early (in terms of long-term benefits). If he Westbrook and Collison (still awaiting word there) were to come back, UCLA would be the preseason No. 1 or No. 2, undoubtedly.

UCLA’s Love, Westbrook Intend to Enter NBA Draft {Los Angeles Times}

Friday, April 18th, 2008 @ 10:33 am Off the Court News, Opinion
RSS 2.0 Trackback