Love is bad defensively, but he's let down by all those around him IMO. They made a switch to the starting line-up last game by starting Johnson ahead of Ellington but I think they need to go further and look at benching Darko and maybe bringing Beasley off the bench and starting Brewer. A starting 5 including Brewer and Johnson looks a lot better defensively than Beasley & Ellington. Chris Bosh is a pretty ordinary defensive player. He's not bad against the switch in the P&R but his post defence is only adequate and his help defence is slightly worse. But surrounded by good defensive teammates that can hide his short-comings, he's a valuable player. I see Love being quite similar - all of his other attributes make up for his short-comings if surrounded by the right teammates.
The problem is, and why they can't shake up the line-up to cover for Love - they've signed Darko for four years. Part of the justification was "nobody has ever believed in him (if you don't include the Pistons, Magic, Gizzlies or Knicks), he's our starting centre and new Vlade Divac", with the hope that all the public affection they showed would translate to some sort of on-court production. So now, when he's not being productive at any level, if they bench him what will happen to his "confidence"? He has consistently refused to show any sort of dedication to improving himself when benched / fallen out of the rotation and now he's got another four guaranteed years of money, why would he change?
Love has too much class to publicly complain so he won't ask for a trade, but if he's stuck playing 25 minutes a night for a team on track to win 12 games for much longer, I wouldn't at all be surprised if he asks them privately to explore some options.
This all could have been avoided if they went for a trade involving Jefferson for Haywood / Butler or something and trumped the Mavs offer last year. Haywood ain't great, but he gives you everything you ask of Darko plus they would have got an upgrade on the wings in Butler and maybe could have done this year's draft differently. Instead they sold Al for Kosta Koufas and crap and are stuck going nowhere.
