David Blatt Says “Kevin [Love’s] Not A Max Player” & It’s Taken Out Of Context

After the Cavs got steamrolled by the Kings in Sacramento last night, 103-84, David Blatt interrupted a reporter’s question to say “[Kevin Love ‘s] not a max player yet, is he?” End quote. Except that’s not where the quote ended and Blatt said it with a smile on his face. Yet here we are with smart, talented columnists using the off-the-cuff remark to talk about how contracts have become the Voldemort of the NBA, and Blatt made a BIG blunder. You never talk about them, even as a first-year NBA coach trying to correct a reporter in a moment of annoyance (Blatt was wrong, by the way).

This happens all time, and we’ve been guilty of it ourselves, though we like to think we try and avoid jumping to conclusions based off a lone tweet. Everyone’s wondering why the Cavs have struggled to a 19-19 start — even during the prolonged LeBron James absence — because they have so much talent on their team. Kyrie Irving and Love are All-Stars who make “max money,” so Blatt’s comments gets turned over and dissected without really looking at the full back-and-forth.

Here’s the full exchange between the reporter and Blatt after the game, with a tip of the cap to reddit’s wonderful r/NBA community:

Q: “People look at this team and say ‘Lebron is out’ but Kyrie Irving, Kevin Love, I mean they’re two max players… they’re here…”
Blatt: “Kevin’s not a max player yet, is he? What? I mean, what does that mean?”
Q: “…Well it means that they’re some of the top players in the league. So I mean, is there too much talent on this team to have nights like this?”
Blatt: “No. No. It could happen to any team. It could happen to any team in the NBA and we’ve seen it happen. Atlanta’s the best team right now on paper in the East, and you saw us beat them by 40 points. So it could happen to any team, certainly.

If you can sit through the first 2:50 seconds of Blatt’s post-game comments, you’ll get to the portion transcribed above where Blatt attempts to correct the reporter, and you can see he’s actually got a smirk on his face when he says it.

Yes, it sounds bad when the incriminating portion is relayed to the populace via a Tweet. Sactown Royalty Associate Editor Blake Ellington offered up the incriminating snippet only, and most outlets used it at the time to write their pieces:

Blatt is obviously confused about the question or what a “max” player might be. A lot of smart NBA fans and writers do the same. You could argue he should be expected to understand the complexities of the CBA or what a “max player” really means because of his job, but that’s not what people have written. There were a lot of hasty reactions online (and we might have been one of them if we hadn’t been busy getting a root canal), and it’s clear everyone believes Blatt’s denigrating Kevin Love — and this after Love was one of the only bright spots (25 points, 10 rebounds) on an otherwise abysmal night for the Cavs.

Plus, Blatt is wrong. Kevin Love is already a max player. He just didn’t sign for a fith year when the Timberwolves re-signed him to his current, four-year $$60,825,936 deal in January of 2012. The deal could have included a fifth year, but Minnesota’s GM at the time — David Kahn — balked at the idea of giving Love a fifth year. The theory held that Kahn was saving that “max” slot for Ricky Rubio, which is funny because they gave Ricky less for four years after smartly canning Kahn.

But Love is making the exact same, per year, as he would have made under a more traditional, five-year, “max” contract. If the only “max contracts” were for five years, then LeBron James isn’t getting a max contract (and LeBron didn’t when he was with the Heat).

Except, David Blatt is Cleveland’s basketball coach not their general manager. Yes, we think the Cavs should run a high screen with Kyrie Irving and Kevin Love EVERY TIME they’re on offense together. No, we’re not a basketball coach, but it makes sense since Love can pick-and-pop or Kyrie can just zoom around his screen to get to the basket and make the defense bend — thus creating opportunities for his teammates. Or Love could slip the screen and get a look in the paint or pass to a corner if the defender rotates. This is how most of the NBA plays on the offensive side of the ball right now in an effort to get a defense scrambling, which opens up looks for everyone.

But while that’s an actual gripe about what Blatt is doing as a basketball coach, this idea that the coach crossed some imaginary no-no line when he mentioned Kevin’s contract is ridiculous. How much a player makes isn’t taboo or out of bounds, it’s how much they freakin’ make for their services. It’s public knowledge. The entire premise of a free market system to squeeze the most out of an investment. Everyone wants a good ROI, or return on investment. As the players always tell us, it’s a business at the end of the day, so why shouldn’t Blatt be allowed to bring it up — even if he’s wrong?

Yes, the Cavs want to re-sign Kevin Love this summer, and all the losing isn’t helping them achieve that goal. But they’re going to make the playoffs, and we’re guessing they’ll have homecourt in the first round; it’s the East, too, so they might even make it to the Finals. But the Cavs HAVE to re-sign Love next summer or they traded Andrew Wiggins away for nothing, which isn’t something you can do as a title contender under the new CBA. And lets face it, any team with LeBron is a title contender.

So did Blatt’s quick correction — that was actually wrong — somehow ruin that plan? We HIGHLY doubt it, unless Kevin reads all the overreactions to Blatt’s reaction, and fails to read this or watch Blatt as he tries to correct the reporter.

Let’s move on to the fact the Cavs can’t play defense to save their life and DeMarcus Cousins manhandled them last night opposite “max player” Kevin Love.

Is this as big a deal as many are claiming?

Follow Spencer on Twitter at @SpencerTyrel.

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