{"id":903,"date":"2014-01-23T21:52:12","date_gmt":"2014-01-24T05:52:12","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/66.147.244.209\/~canadiu3\/?p=903"},"modified":"2014-01-23T22:16:54","modified_gmt":"2014-01-24T06:16:54","slug":"surprise-timberwolves-f-kevin-love-voted-all-star-starter-for-western-conference","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/2014\/01\/23\/surprise-timberwolves-f-kevin-love-voted-all-star-starter-for-western-conference\/","title":{"rendered":"Surprise: Timberwolves F Kevin Love voted All Star starter for Western Conference"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Photo<\/a>
Photo by TonyTheTiger \/ Wikimedia Commons<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

MINNEAPOLIS\u2014Surprise, Kevin Love. You\u2019re an All-Star starter.<\/p>\n

The Minnesota Timberwolves\u2019 forward was voted a Western Conference starter Thursday night, leap-frogging Houston Rockets centre Dwight Howard in the final balloting to earn the first starting nod of his career.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think it\u2019s a little sweeter this way because I really didn\u2019t expect it,\u201d Love said on a conference call. \u201cI was already humbled by the response the fans gave me to being very close to the top (frontcourt players). The outreach by the Minnesota fans and beyond was truly amazing.\u201d<\/p>\n

Earlier in the day after practice in San Francisco, where the Wolves are preparing for a game Friday night against Golden State, Love sounded resigned to not getting voted in when he spoke to reporters. In the final voting tabulations made public last week, Love trailed Los Angeles Clippers forward Blake Griffin by 17,000 votes for the third and final frontcourt spot.<\/p>\n

Love was eating lunch in his hotel room when Timberwolves President Flip Saunders and GM Milt Newton came to his room and gave him the news.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was in disbelief up until it came across the screen that I was going to be a starter,\u201d Love said.<\/p>\n

The Wolves\u2019 public relations staff made a massive push to get out the vote, urging fans to use social media to stuff the box. It\u2019s a bit of vindication for small-market Minnesota to be successful in pushing its star into the game when he was competing against the likes of Griffin and Howard in much bigger cities with much bigger fan bases. Love received 661,246 votes.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt means a lot. It doesn\u2019t go unnoticed,\u201d Love said. \u201cThe fans have been so great this year not only to me, but to the rest of the team. Everybody\u2019s had my back and had the team\u2019s back so much. It really means a lot.\u201d<\/p>\n

It\u2019s also a testament to Love\u2019s superb season. Despite playing on a team that hasn\u2019t quite met expectations this year while hovering around .500 for most of the season, Love has reasserted himself as one of the very best power forwards in the game. He is fourth in the league in scoring at 25.0 points per game, second in rebounds (13.0) and is averaging a career-high 4.1 assists. He has also made big strides on the defensive end as he tries to lead the Timberwolves to their first playoff appearance since 2004.<\/p>\n

\u201cI am very happy for Kevin,\u201d Saunders said in a statement. \u201cHe is certainly deserving of being voted in as a starter. You look at his numbers, his commitment to making his teammates better and his overall value to our team this year, he\u2019s certainly having an All-Star calibre season. He\u2019s been a joy to watch this year and I look forward to watching him represent the Timberwolves in New Orleans.\u201d<\/p>\n

He becomes the Timberwolves\u2019 first starter since Kevin Garnett in 2007, which was also Garnett\u2019s final season in Minnesota.<\/p>\n

Love has been trying to fill Garnett\u2019s shoes for six years now. He doesn\u2019t have KG\u2019s force-of-nature presence on defence or his Big Bad Wolf scowl. What he does have is a game that is quickly making him the next generation\u2019s Dirk Nowitzki.<\/p>\n

The league has seen more and more \u201cStretch 4s\u201d\u2014power forwards that can step out and shoot from the perimeter\u2014over the last five or six years. Nowitzki set that mould with the Mavericks, a 7-footer with the size to get to the glass and the soft touch to draw an opposing big man out of his comfort zone.<\/p>\n

Love has taken it a step further, shooting 3-pointers at an even higher clip while remaining one of the very best rebounders in the league. Griffin and Oklahoma City\u2019s Kevin Durant join him in the West frontcourt.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe\u2019s been one of the best players in the NBA all season and I\u2019m glad his hard work is paying off,\u201d Wolves coach Rick Adelman said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

MINNEAPOLIS\u2014Surprise, Kevin Love. You\u2019re an All-Star starter. The Minnesota Timberwolves\u2019 forward was voted a Western Conference starter Thursday night, leap-frogging …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":44,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[44],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-903","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","category-sports","mauthors-jon-krawczynski","mauthors-the-associated-press"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/903","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/44"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=903"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/903\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=903"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=903"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=903"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}