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Why Kevin Love Didn’t Deserve to be an All-Star This Year

Cleveland Cavaliers power forward Kevin Love is one of four Eastern Conference big men averaging a double-double this season, and one of nine bigs overall. However, Love isn’t one of the 12 men who will take the court in Toronto on Feb. 14 for the 2016 NBA All-Star Game.

Love’s new head coach Tyronn Lue was taken aback by his star big men being excluded, per ESPN.com’s Dave McMenamin:

“I just thought, in this league it’s always been about winning and winning has always been rewarded. Being No. 1 in the East and Kevin being one of four guys in the NBA to average a double-double on a winning team, I’ve just never seen being a first-place team and getting one guy in. I’ve never seen that before.”

Despite Lue’s bewilderment. NBA coaches and fans made the right call in leaving Love off the team for the second straight season. While Love is one of the three best players on the top team in the East, the 27-year-old hasn’t stood out much this season. In fact, two of the former UCLA Bruin’s best games this year came AFTER the All-Star rosters were announced (29 pts/6 reb vs. Detroit on 1/29, 21 pts/11 reb vs. San Antonio on 1/30).

Furthermore, Love’s 2015-16 numbers are down nearly across the board from the disappointing stat line he produced last season, and that’s with him heating up this week with Lue at the helm.

If Love wasn’t worthy of an All-Star nod last season, why would he make the cut this year with inferior numbers?

Lue believes Love deserved to be picked because of Cleveland’s success and that the best team in its respective conference should have more than one representative in the All-Star Game. Last season, the Atlanta Hawks had three All-Stars (Jeff Teague, Paul Millsap, Kyle Korver), while the Golden State Warriors had two (Stephen Curry and Klay Thompson).

Lue’s point has some merit, but how much credit should we give Love for the Cavs’ 34-12 record? LeBron James is once again the club’s offensive linchpin, while Tristan Thompson has been a revelation as the team’s defensive ace. Kyrie Irving, who’s played only 20 games and was also left off the All-Star team, is putting up numbers that are better than Love’s in some categories (16.4 points, 42.6 percent shooting, 18.68 PER).

Furthermore, look at this list of players who made the cut and the production they’ve delivered thus far.

Assuming we can all agree he didn’t deserve a place over the three frontcourt starters (LBJ, ‘Melo, PG-13), who are you taking off the rest of that list to make a spot for Love?

Andre Drummond has been arguably the best center in basketball this season, while Bosh and Millsap both have better stat lines than Love. While Wall’s Wizards are floundering due to injuries (21-24, 11th in the East), the star point guard is also 23rd in the NBA in scoring and third in assists per game.

Meanwhile, two of the other four Eastern big men averaging double-doubles (Pau Gasol and Hassan Whiteside) also missed the cut for the All-Star Game despite one having superior numbers to Love (Gasol: 16.7 points, 10.9 rebounds, 2.1 blocks) and the other being the league leader in rejections (Whiteside, 3.9 swats per game). The case can be made Gasol has a more legitimate beef over being “snubbed” than Love does.

The silver lining to the All-Star omission is the fire it seems to have lit under Love. In his two games since the rosters were revealed, he’s averaging 25 points and 8.5 rebounds. He’s also shooting 53.1 percent from the field (17-of-32), including 61.5 percent from three.

When asked, prior to the team’s 114-106 win over the Pistons, if being snubbed gave him extra motivation, Love played it coy, per McMenamin.

“I don’t know if Kyrie or myself needed more motivation, but we’ll take anything we can get.”

Who knew all it took for Love to play like an All-Star was not making it to the league’s midseason classic?

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