Andrew Bogut Calls Out The ‘Idiots’ Who Criticized A Concussed Kevin Love

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The Golden State Warriors and Cleveland Cavaliers are right in the thick of an NBA Finals rematch that’s suddenly become competitive. Despite the teams being on a collision course to this point since last June and the outwardly antagonistic nature of some of their players, though, Golden State and Cleveland don’t exactly play like rivals in every sense of the term.

For all the passive media jabs and threatening on-court gestures they’ve traded over the past year, the Warriors and Cavaliers clearly have more underlying respect for one another than outright hate – a reality made especially obvious as some hard-headed fans continue to chastise Kevin Love.

Golden State big man Andrew Bogut – an ingenious basketball goon, by the way – came to his frontcourt counterpart’s defense on Thursday while discussing the dangerous nature of playing through concussion-like symptoms.

“There’s probably people calling Kevin Love soft, and those people are idiots,” the Aussie big man told reporters. “You know, you don’t mess around with the brain, because you can be a hero now in the NBA Finals series in 2015-16, and then in 2021 when you’re sucking food through a straw, no one’s really gonna give a sh*t about what you did in 2016.”

Bogut went on to say that he agrees with the league’s über-strict protocol on clearing players who have suffered concussions.

Love, of course, was ruled out after he experienced dizziness early in the third quarter of Game 2. He took an accidental elbow to the head from Harrison Barnes just before halftime that left him on the floor for a couple minutes, but stayed in the game once he rose to his feet. The four-time All-Star failed to pass concussion tests several hours before Game 3 and sat out of his team’s crucial victory as a result.

The widespread criticism directed at Love since the Finals tipped off has mostly been about his poor production and debilitating defensive influence. It’s fair, too. What’s definitely not is anyone condemning Cleveland’s power forward for his inability to get healthy enough to play in Game 3.

As Bogut says, head injuries are nothing to take lightly given what we know in 2016. Their effects can linger for years if not dealt with immediately. And furthermore, Love was reportedly “really frustrated” by the hard-line stance of team medical personnel. Anyone suggesting he was using the injury as an excuse to avoid further scrutiny gleaned from subpar play is flat-out wrong.

Kudos to Bogut for having his opponent’s back – not that it will matter when he and Love tussle during Friday’s Game 4, of course.