Most Improved? Hating on Kevin Love

The NBA's Most Improved Player award is likely the most subjective award handed out every year in the league. Who knows why people vote for one guy versus another. Do individual stats trump team circumstances and success? Does productivity matter more than volume (aka minutes)? Are there varying degrees of difficulty in "improving" (bad to average, average to good, good to great)? Does this award mean that player stunk up the joint last year?

For the purposes of this argument, the answers to those questions are: no, yes, yes, and probably not. And, on those grounds, it's time to compare my pick for Most Improved (Derrick Rose) versus the official winner (Kevin Love). And, as for why the rules were set as they were, it's the only way you can compare the leader of the best regular season team to the leader of the worst regular season team without severe migraines.

SCORING


Both guys took roughly 5 more shots a game, showing up mostly in free throws and 3 point attempts. Rose gets credit for going from average to good in free throw shooting, and below average to average on 3's (noting the insane jump in attempts). Love, however, makes the leap from good to great on 3's, while also increasing attempts in the process. Rose's scoring rate was flat (0.94 points per shot vs. 0.95 last year), while Love's jumped (0.97 versus 0.91 last year). ADVANTAGE: LOVE

REBOUNDING


Kevin Love is an elite rebounder. End of story. Derrick Rose's rebounding numbers did go up, but I'm not so blinded as to attempt some flimsy nitpicking of Love's awesome production (as in, "maybe Love's offensive rebound rate wouldn't have gone down this year if he played like a traditional 4/5 and shot less 3's"... see, now I look stupid). ADVANTAGE: LOVE

PASSING



Rose's assist numbers increased, while his assist-to-turnover ratio stayed pretty much the same. However, a nod to productivity here: Rose's minutes per game didn't move much this year versus last, but his assists went up without creating excessive turnovers. Contrast that with Love, who played 7 more minutes a game this year, and generated much smaller gains in assists and turnovers. ADVANTAGE: ROSE

BLOCKS AND STEALS

The closest thing to stats measuring defense without looking at plus/minus (and the resulting biases from team quality) are steals and blocks. Rose's steal and block numbers went up, and Love's numbers stayed flat, despite the increased minutes. Also, consider this: as of this year, Rose blocks more shots per game than Kevin Love. Pause, and read that again. AS OF THIS YEAR, DERRICK ROSE BLOCKS MORE SHOTS PER GAME THAN KEVIN LOVE. I mean, I know you finish a good defensive play with securing the rebound, but if you don't bother to contest shots, were you even playing defense to begin with? ADVANTAGE: ROSE

All in all, it's more of a toss up than I initially thought, looking only at the individual stats. What else is there? Stat-based arguments for Love struggle to overcome the 21 win improvement for the Bulls (average-to-great) versus the 2 win improvement for the Wolves (awful-to-awful). Here's my tiebreaker...

Going into last summer, both Rose and Love were viewed as the kind of great young pieces that might take the next step playing next to a franchise talent like Lebron or Wade. Fast forward nine months... and neither guy got to play alongside a franchise talent this season. And yet, we're debating whether Rose was better this year than Lebron, Dwight, or any other baller on the planet. Kevin Love is not a part of that conversation. Who's the most improved player this year? Are you serious?

(P.S. Hopefully the next week involves Spurs-Grizzlies games getting promoted from NBA TV. Most compelling 1st round series, with too many good matchups to ignore, particularly Tony Allen - Manu Ginobli.)