In the second quarter of last night’s dominant victory for the Timberwolves over the Pacers, the Wolves faithful finally had something to cheer about this season. Their star forward Kevin Love, hit a free throw to make it 10 points and 10 rebounds in the game at that point. That marked the 52nd straight game with a double-double for Love. A new modern day NBA record.
Love passed Moses Malone for the longest such streak since the ABA and NBA merged in 1976, and the Timberwolves beat the free-falling Indiana Pacers 101-75 Wednesday night.
The remarkable consistency Love has shown has garnered him plenty of attention, but few victories. The Timberwolves (16-50) have lost more games than any team in the Western Conference and have won just 12 times since the streak began on Nov. 22 against Oklahoma City.
There have been times when Love has felt that too much was being made out of an arbitrary achievement. But there is also no doubt that he is proud about what he has been able to do in his third season in the league.
“In some ways I wish it would’ve ended. In some ways I’d like to keep it going,” said Love, who finished with 16 points and 21 boards in three quarters of work on a sore left knee. “Maybe it’ll die down a little bit and I can just go out there and do my job. Nothing’s really changed about how I feel about the double-double streak or the situation. I just go out there and play hard.”
Some detractors will say one of two things about Kevin Love’s new record:
1/ It doesn’t count since the NBA doesn’t officially count double-double’s as a statistic.
In my mind that’s b.s. as it is an incredible feat in the modern day NBA, and takes a lot of skill and effort to be that consistent in today’s physical game.
2/ If the NBA and researchers had been tracking these sorts of stats in Wilt Chamberlain’s day he would have had at least 200+ straight double-doubles. Well you know what? They didn’t, so maybe he did, maybe he didn’t, we’ll never know. But regardless, it doesn’t take away from Kevin Love’s incredible feat. Good job Love, keep going to work big fella, and maybe things will turn around for the Wolves.
Read more details via AP on Yahoo.com
