Crowded low post in Minnesota? It's nothing new to Love

When the mistress becomes the next spouse, who becomes the next mistress?

Sorry to go all romance-novel on you, but it seemed to fit because the Minnesota Timberwolves once again are dealing with a Love triangle.

Love, as in Kevin Love. Triangle, as in two suitors -- Love and newly acquired Michael Beasley -- for one position. Again.

Love vying for minutes at power forward is an age-old tale, one that dates all the way back to, well, last season in Minneapolis when it was Love and Al Jefferson crowding one spot. They played together often but there was an inherent conflict in their skills, if not their relations. Frequently, that meant Jefferson logging his minutes at center, Love sitting too long on the bench or -- unacceptable for a team headed for 15 victories -- both.

It was unacceptable, not inexplicable. The reason was obvious: The Wolves, under president David Kahn, were determined to "earn" a coveted spot near the top of the 2010 Draft order as a quick fix out of their mess. Oops! That didn't work out for them and now, tanking another season isn't a tolerable option. The roster demanded attention beyond the modest addition of the No. 4 pick, small forward Wesley Johnson. There were other tweaks, too, but what did the team do to address its logjam at the "four" spot?

It swapped out logs.

Jefferson, a 25-year-old with rare low-post scoring skills and still mending from February 2009 knee surgery, was gifted to the Jazz (for two protected first-round picks and Kosta Koufos) almost as beneficently as Pau Gasol had been donated to the Lakers in 2008. Logjam broken -- except that one day earlier, Kahn had acquired Beasley in the Heat's clearance moves to avoid its own redundancy (Chris Bosh) and fit pieces around the newly corralled Big Three.

Should Love be worried? Ticked off? Frustrated? All of the above?

Beasley might be a short-timer, a player on whom Kahn felt he had to take a flyer given how cheaply he was procured. He might underwhelm in Minnesota as surely as he did in Miami, when you tote up his on-court performances, his off-court personal issues and his attitude straddling both. But he still has the talent that the Wolves, like so many other clubs, saw two years ago when they sat at No. 3 and watched Derrick Rose and Beasley go 1-2. They settled for O.J. Mayo, then traded him hours later for Love.

Beasley, at 6-foot-9 and still five months shy of 22, still has that glimmer, however dwindling, of being the second-best prospect in the world. And that apparently holds some sway in Minnesota, where Darko Milicic -- Detroit's failed No. 2 pick in 2003 -- demanded starter's minutes last spring if he were to return and was just signed for four years and $20 million. With Kahn in position to mine something that neither Joe Dumars nor Pat Riley could out of those two, Twin Cities fans can safely assume that both will be on the floor a lot.

As for Love, he's only a better rebounder and a better passer, with more discipline, a keener work ethic and a higher hoops IQ than either of them. He averaged 14 points and 11 rebounds, one of the NBA's 15 double-double guys last season, and did it in 28.6 minutes per game. Push that out to a reasonable average of 36 minutes and his numbers grow to 17.1 and 13.8; Orlando's Dwight Howard, at 36 minutes, would have been at 19 and 13.7.

Sure, Love is a little bit of a 'tweener, as they say -- but so is Beasley. Love will never be described as "manna from heaven" the way Kahn swooned over Milicic in the awkward NBA TV interview from Las Vegas with Chris Webber and Matt Winer. But the reason for that is simple: Love was acquired by Kahn's predecessor, Kevin McHale, whose fingerprints on the roster have been getting a full USC-Mayo-Reggie Bush scrubbing.

Sitting behind Jefferson, when they weren't on the court in tandem, was one thing for Love. Sitting while Milicic, Ryan Hollins and Nathan Jawai soaked up minutes was quite another. The third-year forward made his sentiments known as the swap-out from Jefferson to Beasley was taking shape.

"Hopefully [Beasley] wants to play small forward and not power forward so we can be out there together," Love told the Star Tribune. "I feel like I'm a starter. I want to be a starter. Sixth man is and will be kind of hard for me to accept on this team. If this was the Lakers and Pau Gasol and Andrew Bynum were in front of me, it'd be different ... We're young and inexperienced. It's tough to see where we're headed."

There were keen observers of the Minnesota team last season who felt that Love often was benched as a way of handicapping the situation, giving the Wolves a greater shot at lottery-valuable losses. After all, with the former UCLA forward on the court, Minnesota was 5.7 points better than when he sat, by far the best rating among its frontcourt players.

Love's tone had softened some -- or at least, his feelings were a little better veiled -- by the time he participated in the USA national team's training this week in Las Vegas. He had had a conversation with Kahn.

"They want me to have a big role in the future. I'm going to be the power forward for us for a long time, hopefully," Love told NBA.com's John Schuhmann. "I'm looking, in my third year, to play a few more minutes a game and just keep getting better."

Sounds good. But after at least one year of mismanagement, a season stumbling into 15 victories, some overlaps and blocked paths still in front of him and two years until a taste of freedom (restricted free agency in 2012, unrestricted in 2013), Love might already be pondering an alternate future. These USA training days could be convenient for talking to peers, building relationships that stretch beyond NBA team boundaries and playing a little "what if?"

There's a little of that going around the league these days, in case you missed it.

Steve Aschburner has written about the NBA for 25 years. You can e-mail him here and follow him on twitter.

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