Kevin Love isn’t mad on the perceived hate.
In projecting the NBA way forward for possible No. 1 total decide Cooper Flagg, sports activities speak present host Dan Patrick in contrast the Duke star to five-time NBA All-Star Kevin Love.
Not as a praise.
“In the event you begin to have a look at participant comps, which we do, you mechanically are going to go to a white man who’s 6-foot-8 or so,” Patrick mentioned on The Dan Patrick Present on Peacock and Fox Sports activities Radio. “Now, listed at 6-foot-9, however is he a Larry Chook-type of participant? In the event you mentioned his profession was going to be like Kevin Love’s, would that be a disappointment? And it in all probability can be.”
A rebounding machine early in his NBA profession, Love was the No. 5 total decide within the 2008 draft out of UCLA.
He’s within the seventeenth season of a profession that features two All-NBA choices, an NBA championship with the Cavaliers and a Most Improved Participant Award in 2010-11.
However, in an period of athletes preventing with these paid to have sports activities opinions on social-media channels, Love took Patrick’s remark in stride.
“For individuals who will take this as a shot at me …I don’t take it as such,” Love wrote on X. “I used to be pure talent & will. Cooper is way extra proficient than I ever was and if he stays wholesome can have a much better profession. He might very properly have a statue by the point he’s completed. I’m a HUGE fan.”
The unselfish box-score-filler Flagg will lead Duke in opposition to Alabama within the East Regional ultimate in Newark, N.J. on Saturday evening.
He would be the prize of the NBA draft lottery — possibly for the Nets?
“That is anyone who scrimmages in opposition to the Olympic group, held his personal,” Patrick mentioned. “He’s 18 years of age. He’s going to make $1 billion if he stays wholesome. He’ll in all probability get a few max offers in there, however is he Keith Van Horn, who went No. 2 total in his (draft) yr out of Utah.”
Patrick settled on Kevin Durant as a Flagg comparability.
That’s fairly a bounce from Love and positively from Van Horn, who by no means made an All-Star group.
