Love-ly Offer

I was going to wait until after something happened to comment on this, but there's simply too much talk about it for me to ignore.  Kevin Love and Taj Gibson might most certainly play against each other next season, but it's possible they'll be switching the uniforms they're wearing in the above picture.  The Bulls have reentered the Love sweepstakes as a late challenger to the Cavaliers.  Reportedly, their offer to the Timberwolves for the big man is Gibson, Jimmy Butler, Nikola Mirotic, Doug McDermott and maybe some future first-round draft picks.

This is where two sides of me begin to clash because I can see both sides of this argument.  On the plus side, Love would finally be that second primary scorer the Bulls have been needing for so long and it would round out the club.  Teaming up with Derrick Rose, Joakim Noah and Pau Gasol can only be a good thing for a player of his caliber.  He could finally play for a winner in a big market, neither of which Minnesota has been able to offer during is time there.  Most importantly, the Bulls would be a serious contender to take the East and maybe even give the West champion a hard time in the Finals.  This is, after all, what the fan base and the organization has aimed for ever since Tom Thibodeau took over as coach and Gar Forman was named general manager.

Then, you have my side that doesn't think this is the best idea.  The Bulls are offering a lot, and as the Spurs showed us recently, you need depth to win a championship.  Miami's Big 3 learned the hard way that a team of stars won't always achieve its ultimate goal when the last team in the way has plenty of reinforcements.  Butler and Gibson personify what this team has been under Thibodeau:  a hard-working, defensive-minded club that prides itself on smothering its game plan right in the face of opponents.  Their offense is just as important to who they are.

While it sounds foolish to not be so inclined to trade McDermott and Mirotic when neither has played a single NBA second, I'm still interested as to what they can do and would love to have them in a Bulls uniform for years to come.  It's true that we don't know how well their games will translate here although they dominated their last levels.  There have been plenty of stories of such players who struggled to adapt to the NBA and never found their footing.  Even so, I have the utmost confidence they'll make names for themselves to the point where every team would love to have them.

Of course, the Bulls have been trying to get over the hump with their style of play for years now with little to show for it.  Perhaps a change in their makeup is just what they need if they hope to get back to the Finals.  After all, everyone goes hard during the playoffs and as we recently saw, hustle means nothing if you can't score.  Love would be a perfect remedy for that.

Regardless of what happens, we have to give props to Forman for continuing to work on improvements for his team.  Just when we think he's ready to relax a bit for a couple of months, a story like this enters the news.  We can't fault him for trying.  We just wonder if he's able to close.

The real kicker for me here is I'm only two days away from spending the weekend in Minnesota.  How ironic would it be if this deal was executed while in the other area affected?  I wouldn't complain or anything, but it would certainly offer an interesting perspective.  The Timberwolves lost Kevin Garnett to the Celtics in 2007.  This might give a taste of what that was like.