Wolves Insider: Love looks great, Brewer OK

LAS VEGAS — After four days, 21 games from which to choose, countless grateful hours inside, away from the desert sun, and too many late nights breaking down film with the coaches, here are one guy's impressions from a visit to the NBA's Las Vegas Summer League:

• Granted, it's only July, a time of year when Nikoloz Tskitishvili and Marco Belinelli have looked like certain future NBA stars. New Timberwolves forward Kevin Love, however, has been as impressive as anybody in Vegas with double-double performances every night that have illustrated this point:

This is Al Jefferson's team.

The trade that brought Love and Mike Miller to Minnesota was designed to create more space for big Al to operate. O.J. Mayo, whose rights the Wolves traded to Memphis in an eight-player deal that included Love and Miller, will become a featured player and possibly a real star. His uneven play -- electrifying at times, turnover-prone and overpowered at others -- suggests it won't happen instantly.

Questions remain about how Love will fare come October against opponents taller and far quicker than he faced in Las Vegas. He displayed in his first three games such peculiar skills -- freakish passing, the knack to anticipate the game one move ahead -- that made scouts seated courtside marvel and that indicate he will be a teammate who immediately makes Jefferson, Miller, Randy Foye, Corey Brewer and Co., better. On Saturday, Love was added to a team of young NBA stars that will scrimmage against the U.S. Olympic team in Las Vegas this week.

Foye was asked how he would have played with Mayo in the same backcourt together.

"It would have been interesting," he said after practicing with Love three times in Las Vegas. "We've still got Rashad [McCants], who is a great offensive player. O.J. would have had to fit in. Al is our guy. People have to understand that. With my personality, we would have made it work."

Foye said he believes Love will fit, perhaps splendidly.

"I can tell already he's genuine from the heart, not a fake," Foye said. "He's a good kid. Man, that's all you ask for when you draft someone: Get a good kid and someone who understands what you're trying to do."

One big question remains: Will the complementary offensive skills of Love and Jefferson in a power forward/center combination offset their defensive liabilities?

"That's going to be a concern," Houston Rockets coach Rick Adelman said. "But those guys will work that out."

• Big questions also remain about Brewer, the second-year forward who displayed in summer league the defensive versatility that brought him the most important assignment nightly as a rookie. He also showed against lesser competition that he continues to search for a semblance of an offensive game.

Love's ability to throw a precise 70-foot outlet pass should simplify Brewer's game, as it did in Wednesday's game when Love's passing created a straight-line, fast game in which Brewer thrived when he got directly to the rim. He struggles when he hurries his shot, which is most of the time, and when he tries to do far too much, which was much of the time on a summer-league team lacking primary scorers beyond Love.

Coach Randy Wittman wants Brewer to benefit from the talent around him simply by hitting open shots presented to him. Brewer is spending his summer shooting hundreds of shots a day in the practice gym. During one summer-league game, he even attempted a hook shot from the lane. He said he has been working on that shot.

"I don't know if he's been watching old Lakers tape of Kareem [Abdul-Jabbar] or what," Wolves assistant general manager Fred Hoiberg said. "That's not what we've been working on."

•  Point guard remains a lonely position. Foye is the only one under contract while the Wolves negotiate with unrestricted free agent Sebastian Telfair. One of the summer league's three point guards -- Michigan State's Drew Neitzel, NBA Developmental Leaguer Blake Ahearn and former D-Leaguer Pooh Jeter -- could get an invitation to fall camp and might snag a third-guard spot come November, but the Wolves would prefer to solve that important position with more experienced players.

Wittman likened Jeter, short but speedy, to Telfair because both players can change the pace of a game. The team continues to talk trade for a backup point guard and could both re-sign Telfair and trade for a combo guard because Wittman would prefer to have three point-guard options when training camp opens, only 2 1/2 months hence.

Jerry Zgoda • jzgoda@startribune.com