Workout Report: Love is a Doggone Good Thing
The Grizzlies conducted what will surely be one of their most important pre-draft workout sessions this morning with a six-pack workout that grouped big men Kevin Love, DeAndre Jordan, JaVale McGee, and Joey Dorsey and paired them with guards Kyle Weaver and Jeremy Pargo.
The focus was on the big men and particularly on Love, one of maybe half-a-dozen-or-so players the team would legitimately consider at #5. Here’s how Love and the rest of the players looked today:
Love: For starters, he looked smaller than I anticipated — for better or worse. Weight doesn’t seem to be an issue right now: Love has shed fat and toned up since the college season and didn’t look like he needed to slim down any more. Height-wise, Love didn’t seem much taller than Joey Dorsey. I haven’t been able to find out the official team measurement from today, but Love said after the workout that he measured 6’8.25” in socks. I asked him separately about the 1.75 inches he gained in shoes at Orlando and he said the difference was only 1.25 inches today. That would put him at 6’9.5” in shoes. I’m not buying that.
Once the drills started, Love showed his superlative basketball skills and backed up the suggestion from Orlando that he’s a better athlete than anticipated.
He shot the ball very well from the mid-range in multiple drills and then ended the day by sinking 7 of 10 from NBA three-point range. Love’s form from long-range was smooth and easy. He’s easily the best shooter the Grizzlies have seen in workouts so far, out-shooting all of the guards and small forwards as well.
Love wasn’t able to demonstrate his famed outlet passing in the workout setting, but his interior passing in three-on-three sets was superb — routinely finding teammates with bounce passes through traffic for dunks — and his chest passes in drills were crisp and on target where the other bigs tended to throw erratic passes with too much arc.
The biggest question about Love in the workout was whether he would have difficulty getting shots off against long, NBA-caliber athletes, and that aspect of the workout was very promising. In live post drills, Love was easily the most effective player on the floor, scoring against every match-up and displaying great patience, feel, and fundamental post skills. Love scored on Dorsey with an up-and-under move and on McGee with a jump hook. Against Jordan, Love spun into the lane, dipped his shoulder to create space, and sunk a jump hook over him. These guys may not be Tim Duncan exactly, but McGee and Jordan are athletic seven-footers with huge wingspans and will be shot-blockers at the NBA level. Love handled them.
Love wasn’t fast running the floor, but did show good quickness on both sides of the ball, with sharp, decisive post moves and, more impressively, stepping out to defend pick-and-rolls, where he was aggressive and nimble. Love also used his quick hands to garner multiple deflections.
Overall, Love demonstrated today that he’s a wonderfully skilled basketball player with reasonable athleticism. He validated everything I thought about his skill level, but I came away more concerned about his height/length. I said early on that, in order to take Love at #5, you had to be convinced he could swing over to center for decent stretches. Seeing him up close, I’m not convinced he’ll be able to do that. He’s considerably undersized for the center spot and doesn’t have the length or leaping ability to be a weakside shot-blocker. Chris Wallace points out that, in the current NBA, anyone who can play power forward can spend some time at center in certain match-ups. That’s probably true, but I don’t think you can factor ability to play center into Love’s scouting report.
Generally speaking, I’m convinced that these aspects of Love’s game will translate and help the team:
1. He’ll be able to rebound. Not sure if he’ll be a 10-board-a-game guy in the pros, but he’ll rebound at a high level. Rebounding is as much about skill, desire, and strength as it is about length and leaping ability, and it’s a skill that translates better from the college to pro game than other skills.
2. He’ll be a quality passer. I’m not sure if his famed outlet passing will be quite as effective against NBA defenses as it was in college — a possibility Love acknowledged when I asked him about it after the workout — but it will still be a plus. And his passing ability within the halfcourt offense would give the team an important element it lost when Pau Gasol was traded.
3. He’ll be great in the high pick-and-roll with Mike Conley. Love will set hard picks that will help free up Conley to attack the paint and he’ll be able to step back off those picks with his deep shooting range to punish defenses. He should also be able to use his passing ability in those situations — I can see Rudy Gay catching a few alley-oops from Love out of the high post. This multi-threat ability will help the whole offense and particularly help Conley maximize his skills.
4. He will add a strong-willed, likable, engaging personality to a team that needs one.
5. He’ll score enough in the post and from the free-throw line to be a multi-dimensional scorer. He won’t be a go-to post scorer, but he’ll get his points in a variety of ways.
Still, all those positives don’t entirely mitigate the big question I have about Love’s length. If he were three inches taller, he might be Tim Duncan. But he’s not. At the worst, I think Love will be a bigger, better Shane Battier — an elite role player who helps you win. He will not be a bust. But does he really have the upside you want at #5? That’s something I’ll be thinking about in the coming weeks, especially when we get an up-close look at Anthony Randolph and, hopefully, Eric Gordon.
Dorsey: I thought Joey Dorsey looked pretty good today. He was unimpressive in some drills, but showed glimpses of scoring ability in live-contact drills, including hitting a jump hook over Deandre Jordan and hitting a couple of threes.
Dorsey was at his best in the full-court, three-on-three drills, getting back on defense, breaking up plays in transition, and running the floor and letting teammates set him up. I still don’t buy the Ben Wallace comps, but I’m starting to see how Dorsey could be a more explosive, slightly more skilled Bo Outlaw type role player. Still a contender at #28.
Jordan: DeAndre Jordan was as advertised: He boasted a huge frame and excellent athleticism but doesn’t know how to play. Jordan is not an electric, explosive athlete in the mold of a Dwight Howard or young Shawn Kemp, but combination of length and leaping ability is still imposing, especially considering he has the frame to add more muscle.
Jordan threw down several monster dunks today, but most of his basketball skills were lacking: He struggled with passing, shooting, ball-handling, and free-throw shooting and his post play was gangly and frenetic.
Jordan looks like he could develop into an all-star center or not develop and be out of the league. That’s a risk worth taking at some point in the draft, but not at #5.
McGee: McGee had more trouble than anyone else picking up drill early on, but once he settled down he showed a little less athletic upside but a little more polish than Jordan. McGee had great length, good athleticism, and a surprising touch on mid-range jumpers. He’d be an intriguing pick mid-way through the first round, but seems to be a year or so away from contributing.
Pargo/Weaver: With so much emphasis on the big men, the guards didn’t make much of an impression today. I don’t think Pargo is serious contender at #28. Weaver could be, but didn’t really show much today. I’ll call him a longshot.
