Former Wolves forward Kevin Love became the latest athlete to pen a piece for Derek Jeter's new "Players' Tribune," a new venture that an optimist would call a chance for athletes to speak directly to fans and a pessimist would call a chance for athletes to craft specifically tailored messages without being asked any difficult questions.

Regardless of how you feel about The Players Tribune, there are some items of interest from Love's piece, which details his emotions over the summer, reveals some thoughts about Minnesota and then delves into his time, so far, with the Cavaliers.

He also apparently watched more Netflix than should be humanly possible. But here's the good stuff:

Things were especially tough because for a month before the trade was finalized, Wiggins and I were caught in NBA purgatory. Is this happening, is this not happening? With everything up in the air, I felt like I couldn't say a proper goodbye to Minnesota. And once the trade finally went through, everything happened quickly. So I'd like to take a moment to thank the fans of Minnesota for six great years. I still remember sitting in Madison Square Garden when I was first drafted in 2008, thinking that if I could go anywhere it would be to the Timberwolves to work with one of my childhood idols, Kevin McHale. There are so many people in Minnesota who helped to shape my game and mold me into the player I am today. I'll always be fond of going to Manny's Steakhouse, and the support I got from the entire Minnesota community — even in tough times — is something I'll remember forever. (Seriously, thanks for not burning my jersey, you guys.)

Seems like a pretty legit thanks/goodbye. Well done. Now we get into a mix of contrition and thin skin, two things that don't mix well:

I'll be the first to tell you that I didn't always handle things perfectly. We are all unfinished products. It's not easy to handle the disappointment of losing when you're in your early twenties. There were times when I wasn't easy to be around in the locker room. It's hard to be a leader when you don't have the model — and when you don't have a blueprint for what winning in the NBA looks like. But I make no excuses. I posted my best personal numbers last season, and we still didn't make the playoffs. Some of the backlash was pretty hard to take — I learned that there is apparently such a thing as an "empty stat" (I'll try to remember the importance of that the next time I am boxing out for a rebound against Tim Duncan).

Translation: Sometimes he was a bad teammate, but it's only because he wanted to win and because nobody showed him how to be a leader. And even though he was doing everything he could to win, it still happen. And even though he put up his best personal numbers of his career, he's not a stat-chaser and takes offense to the notion of an empty stat. He makes no excuses, except where he makes excuses. But still: his acknowledgement that he made mistakes is meaningful.

Everything on the plane to Rio was natural, and I felt like I could be a part of something special. It was a culture that I'm not accustomed to. After I was traded this summer, I kept hearing about how our challenge was going to be figuring out how to share the ball among LeBron, Kyrie and myself. Reporters kept asking me how I felt about it. … To them I say: I don't care. I've never played in a playoff game. I came to Cleveland because I want to win. I'll grab a broom and sweep the floors if it gets me an NBA title.

Another shot at the Wolves' culture, though we're not sure he can be blamed for that. And an affirmation at the end that he doesn't care about stats, just winning. We'll see how that goes as the season progresses. He's already talking about how he's not getting touches in the post, and it's still just the preseason. We'll see.