[kngojcParticipant]

The Minnesota Timberwolves are planning to offer star power forward Kevin Love a $60 million, four-year contract extension before the Jan. 25 deadline, the St. Paul Pioneer Press reports. Love is eligible for a max contract of five-years and about $80 million.

Love is making $4.6 million this season, the Pioneer Press notes.

Kevin Love has until Jan. 25 to sign an extension. (AP Photo)
If Love turns down the offer, he will become a restricted free agent at the end of the season. If he opts for free agency, Minnesota has the right to match any offer from another team. Love also has a $6.1 million player option, meaning he can play for the Timberwolves next season and become an unrestricted free agent in the summer of 2013.

By not offering Love the max, Minnesota is taking a big risk of losing a practically automatic nightly double-double and breaking up a promising young core of Love, Ricky Rubio and Derrick Williams.

[HaleParticipant]

Interesting…I would’ve definitely thought they would offer the max. I mean if Rudy Gay and Joe Johnson got max offers on more stacked teams I don’t see why the Wolves won’t shell out the money, even if I don’t think he deserves the max, it’s the smart decison to offer it.

 

[NbanflguyParticipant]

If this is true, all the optimism about this wolves team is about to go bye bye

[aamir543Participant]

They are playing cheap, and as somone who can play the same game, it’s a HUGE risk, but in the end it may pay off.

Look, Love will probably turn this down, and all hell will break loose, but IF he accepts it, this sets the T-Wolves up beautifully for the future.

Look, OKC won’t have to much more time witth this core. Durant and Westbrook gobbling up 60% of their cap, and Perkins’ sizable contract, how will they pay Ibaka and Harden, let alone a respectable bench.

This is a gamble, and will it will probably backfire, but I can see where they are coming from.

[IndianaBasketballParticipant]

Wow… We should be applauding the Wolves for having the balls to offer Love what he’s actually worth.

He’s not a max contract player or the kind of player that’s going to LEAD this team to a championship. They’ll still need money to offer other players and build the team.

You can argue that Rubio’s (potential/future) is more important to the Wolves than Love.

[HaleParticipant]

 "Wow… We should be applauding the Wolves for having the balls to offer Love what he’s actually worth."

I agree he isn’t worth it, but what happens if the gamble fails and he leaves? He isn’t completely irreplacable, but it’s still tough to find a substitute for him.

[TallmanNYCParticipant]

 Max contracts really aren’t as much as you think they are. Let’s put it this way, Love’s max four year contract works out to be about $15 million a year. Kwame Brown is making $7 million this year. Love is definitely worth double Kwame Brown. Heck, he is probably 10 times more valuable than the old KB. So Love it is crazy to say that Love isn’t "worth" a max contract. I’m not saying that he is as good value as Lebron, Durrant, Rose or D. Wade. But he compares quite favorably to Joe Johnson, Rudy Gay and Chris Bosh. All these guys basically make the same "max" money. It really isn’t that hard under the current salary cap rules to be worthy of a max contract. You don’t have to be a top 10 guy, you probably don’t even have to be a top 20 guy (though Love is most certainly one of the 20 best players in the league right now). 

Love might prefer the four year deal as it gets him to true free agency sooner where he can (a) get another huge contract if he is playing like he currently does and (b) control his own destiny either with a sign and trade during his fourth year or by just going all the way to end of this contract. There are lots of reasons why Love might want a shorter extension. 

Of course if he gets hurt in the next four years he might miss that fifth $20 million year. 

[natedogggParticipant]

Its worth the Gamble, why on earth would you offer him max straight up when you have the right to match any offer he gets in free agency?

meaning even if he turns it down, you can still offer him more than any other team and match any offer.

[mikeyvthedonParticipant]

Guys, I think people do not realize that HE IS A RESTRICTED FREE AGENT. This comes up time and time again on this site, I do not blame yupyup for bringing this up, but here is the deal:

• Love gets a pretty freaking nice offer of 4 years/60 million (More than LaMarcus Aldridge got with the Blazers, he was around 13 mill per year. I know Brandon Roy was also there at the time. Just saying.)
• He more than likely "rejects such an insult" (Even though it is most definitely, fair)
• He goes and looks for a team to shell out the max this summer
• Minnesota matches that offer and he is with them for however long the offer is for, most likely at least 4 years

Even if he accepts the qualifying offer, than they TONS of trade options. He would be making 6.1 million, which is a hell of a lot easier to trade than a huge salary like the other guys who want to leave their team for greener pastures. I do not know why this is even a big deal.

The Timberwolves are totally in the drivers seat right now and if Kevin dislikes this offer, they can just maybe try to trade him while his value is ridiculously high. Odds are, he is not going to risk injury by signing the qualifying offer and I absolutely feel that Minnesota matches any offer sheet he signs. Kevin is definitely a double-double machine, but his signing a max offer would make this team incredibly limited in its options of signing talent to get them to the point most people on this board believe they will go to. I think Kahn and the Wolves are ridiculous, but this offer to Kevin Love is one of the less ridiculous things I have seen this team do.

[IndianaBasketballParticipant]

^^^  Swish ^^^

[llperez]

everyone is saying he isnt worth max and the wolves are smart offering something closer to his value, but the difference between 4 yrs 60 mill and 5 years 80 mill is only 1 million dollars a season. Thats nothing. Basically it comes down to the extra year of financial security. Somebody is gonna offer him that  and the wolves will end up paying him that when its all said and done.

[kngojcParticipant]

 You can say all you want about how Love isn’t worth a max contract all you want but without him on the team.. They would look horrible. Ricky Rubio makes everyone on the team better but come on… Will somebody give Love the credit he deserves? In every post regarding Kevin Love, you got IndianaBasketball essentially calling him a scrub on any other team besides the Wolves. Tell me exactly how many other players have the kind of accolades that he does? Like how he has started the season with all double double’s, which only the elite in the game have done by the way. He can’t just grab the ball and take over a game like LBJ or DWade or Rose or anyone like that because he’s a post player. THEY NEED SOMEONE TO PASS THEM THE BALL TO DO THEIR OWN THING. Is Dwight Howard a go-to guy at all times where they give him a touch on every possession? No. What about Tim Duncan? Still no. And those are two of the best bigs of this decade (excluding the recently retired Shaq). The versatility, consistency, and intangibles he brings to this team isn’t irreplaceable, but its damn near close because they won’t find another PF that can lead the league in rebounds and shoot 40% from 3 while also being a ridiculously hard worker that’s main goal is to get better and be the best basketball player he can be. 

[kngojcParticipant]

http://www.insidehoops.com/blog/?p=9091

Saw this this morning. I think its a way better way of handling it. If Westbrook doesn’t get a max contract, Love shouldn’t either because they can impact the game in the same ways. Plus neither of them qualify for the Derrick Rose rule as far as I know. Either way, Kevin Love is gonna get PAID now. Hopefully that money doesn’t make him lazy..

[uknationParticipant]

How is Love not worth it?  Few players are max contract guys who can lead a team alone. Blake Griffen isn’t and neither is Rose. As a matter of fact no one player can lead there team to a championship game except Lebron. If Blake was puttin gup these same numbers then people would be like "He’s a max player". Love scores at the same clip and rebounds aty a better clip and neither is above a average defender at best. I think people get confused about Max contract player. If he are arguably the best at you’re position and there are a good amount of very good players at you’re position then you deserve a max contract.

 

I always laugh at people who try to downplay Love but quick to jump on the Blake Bandwagon when Blake was playing on a bad team with more talent then the Twolves last year. Peopel put wayyyyy to much in to how athletic a player is. Let’s see how good Blake is his 30’s if he doesn’t get better skills because right now more than half of his production is because of the fact that he is more athletic than anyone who is guarding him. He is still a very good player but Love shoul dbe getting the same respect as Blake easily

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