• Nov.12. 2010



As the clock ticked toward midnight on Friday the Twitter accounts of NBA writers across the country gradually began to shift toward one topic. Kevin Love? Really? Of all the potential players to join the NBA's 30-point, 30-rebound club -- a club that hasn't seen a member since Moses Malone joined in 1982 --Love seemed like an unlikely candidate.

But there was Love against New York, dominating the defensive glass (19) and gobbling up 12 of Minnesota's 57 missed shots to finish the game with 31 boards. His 31 points didn't come pretty -- it took 26 shots for Love to get them -- but Minnesota needed every one of them to battle back from a 21-point deficit and secure a 112-103 victory.

Why is Love's performance so surprising? At a listed 6-foot-10 (yeah, right) and with a vertical leap that you could barely slide a piece of paper under, Love doesn't have the athleticism of elite rebounders like Dwight Howard or Tyson Chandler. But Love's board work is a sweet blend of physicality, positioning and an uncanny knowledge of where the ball will come off the rim. Last season he ranked as the NBA's best rebounder per 48 minutes (18.4), edging Howard (18.3) and Marcus Camby (18.1). His rebound percentage this season (23.2 percent going into Friday night) is the third highest in NBA history for players 22 or younger, better than Howard, Charles Oakley and Shaquille O'Neal.

"For me, rebounding is all a mindset," Love wrote this week in a blog for GQ. "My dad told me back in the day that there is no such thing as a selfish rebound because it's a team stat. If you have to fight one of your own teammates for a rebound, do it -- as long as you get it. Also, I studied the greats. Dennis Rodman had it figured out: he knew that most shots are going to come to the other side of the rim. So that's how I position myself. And Bill Russell always used to say that 80 percent of rebounds are below the rim. I'm not the kind of guy who's going to jump and touch the top of the square every time. I use my body for positioning, and I work relentlessly underneath the rim. You don't have to be the most athletic guy in the world to get a bunch of rebounds, so I just try and take what my dad said to heart, what Rodman said to heart, and most importantly what Bill Russell said to heart. He's got 11 championship rings so I think he knows what he's talking about."