Dec 12, 2012; Minneapolis, MN, USA; Minnesota Timberwolves power forward Kevin Love (42) asks for a foul call against the Denver Nuggets during the fourth quarter at Target Center. Timberwolves won 108-105. Mandatory Credit: Greg Smith-USA TODAY Sports

  How much worse has Kevin Love been this season? There’s been a lot of talk lately about Kevin Love and his Super Star status for the Timberwolves, good or bad. I’ve heard quite a few ‘talking heads’ say “he will be fine, he’s just getting healthy.” While that could very well be true, the problem is that if you’re a “Super Star” you don’t get to use that as an excuse.

   Kobe Bryant had a fractured finger, bad knee, bad wrist, etc… last season and he missed little to no games while playing at a high (very high) level. Dwayne Wade missed games last season, quite a few actually and he finished 3^rd in the ‘Simple Rating’ formula, (The main components of the ‘Simple Ratings’ are a production measure (a variant of the PER rating) for a player’s own stats versus his opponent while he is on the court, as well as the court/off court plus minus).

   Thoughts on the ‘Simple Rating’ better indicator of a player’s production than the more popular PER (Player Efficiency Rating), and it combines +/-. By including +/- numbers, you can get a better indicator of the players’ impact to his team. To give you an indication as to where Love is, in terms of the NBA, here are the top 8 players in the NBA in ‘Simple Rating’. Also included, are the current 13 active Timberwolves.

   While this article isn’t intended to be on the Timberwolves as a whole, this article is to focus on where the Wolves star ranks in the NBA so far this season. Currently at this point of the season, Kevin Love has a ‘Simple Rating’ of 3.7. In contrast to last season, Love had a ‘Simple Rating’ of 9.8 and was 12^th in the NBA. Through Love’s NBA career, Wolves fans have seen Love grow by leaps and bounds over his 1^st 4 years. Now in his 5^th year, after signing his ‘BIG’ contract, his numbers are not anywhere near his contract would indicate he should be.

   His WS (win shares) are downright pitiful so far this season. Both his TS(True Shooting) and eFG (effective Field goal) percentages are the lowest in his NBA career.  I know this season is young, and there is time, but so far, none of these numbers are encouraging. There are a lot of factors that can possibly go into the decline of these numbers: all of the injuries to both Love and the team, new personnel, lack of practice time due to injuries, the whole team has yet to play together due to injuries. All of those reasons could be used as valid explanations to his ugly shooting, BUT, when you want to be the number 1, ’The Go to Guy’, there should be no excuses, ‘Go to Guys’ just go out and perform.

  The ‘Simple Rating’ that was highlighted above, uses the PER as part of its overall calculation. Here is a look at straight PER and were Kevin Love ranks in the NBA.

   He ranks 59! 59^th in the NBA in PER. We talked about him being injured, so was Nene and he is 7^th. Can the 18.3 PER ranking change? Sure it can, there is no doubt about that. Kevin will need to get his shot to start falling if he wants to get this 59^th rank PER back to where it was last season. Last season, Kevin Love ranked 6^th in PER at 25.4 in the NBA.

  There was talk about Kevin Love being ‘The Best Power Forward’ in the NBA coming into this season. The production of PF’s (power forward) in the league would go to show Kevin Love is not even close to being in the running for ‘Best Power Forward’ in the NBA at this point of the season.

   Taking every PF that averages over 29 MPG (Minutes per Game), Love is near the bottom in almost every shooting category. More telling he has the lowest TS% (True Shooting) among all of the PF. Love is #1 in TRB% (True Rebounding), but because he doesn’t block shots or have any steals, he would really seem to be a 1 trick pony when you look at the numbers. In the NBA, only 3 players with at least 25 games played have a higher TRB%.

   Is there time for Kevin Love to improve his shot? Yes, there is no doubt about that, and that would seem to be the only thing missing from his game right now. Due to his injury and the way it happened and the comments made to Yahoo, it’s becoming more difficult to be patient with Love because of those factors and his who contract debacle still trickling over from last season. In the past, he has complained he doesn’t have the supporting cast. This season that is no longer a valid excuse. With 31% of the season gone (26 games), there is time (56 games). In a tough Western Conference the sooner Kevin Love can get his shot going, the better off this team will be for a team that had high hopes entering the year.