Love "laughs" at report he told team he will leave

Timberwolves star Kevin Love said today he hasn't told the team he will opt out of his contract in summer 2015 and sign elsewhere, as a series of Internet Tweets reported after Wednesday's 104-91 home victory over Indiana.

Love told reporters this after practice today: "We laughed about it today. It's a media-driven story. For the past couple years, I can't believe some of the stuff that has come out. We went out and played hard last night, great performance as a team. To see some stuff like that is just kind of disheartening."

Love spoke with the media this afternoon, just before the NBA's trade deadline came and went without the Wolves making a deal.

That means Love is still a Timberwolf and one who's about to play more center now that backup center Ronny Turiaf is hurting, too. He sustained a bone bruise on his right knee in the fourth quarter and is out indefinitely, the team said today.

Longtime NBA columnist and commentator Peter Vecsey in a series of unsourced tweets Wednesday night said Love told Wolves boss Flip Saunders before the All-Star break that he has decided to play elsewhere when he can escape a four-year contract a year early in July 2015. He said expect Love to be traded by Thursday's trade deadline or in this upcoming off-season and said Love wants to play only for teams with a winning culture and mentioned Boston and Chicago as possible teams that would have assets to trade for Love and that would fit his criteria.

Saunders called the report "false" in a tweet that responded to Vecsey's tweets just after the Wolves beat the Pacers.

Love said he and Flip laughed about the report, but Love did confirm part of Saunders' tweet sent out Wednesday night. Saunders said the last conversation he had with Love was about Love telling him how bad his sport coat was.

Love told GQ magazine in an interview released this week that he's having "fun" in Minnesota and that the Wolves are better positioned to win than the Los Angeles Lakers, the team so many assume he will sign with in 2015.

"Basically all I said is our foundation and our team is better than a lot of teams that you guys and Peter Vecsey and whoever the hell else says I'm going to," Love said.

Speculation about his future will continue until Love either opts out in July 2015 and re-signs with the Wolves or another team or until the team trades before that.

"It comes with the territory," Love said. "I just don't want to talk about it. It takes away from the team. It takes away from what Coach is trying to do. At the end of the day, I just want to play basketball. I don't want to think about whether I'm going to be here or somewhere else in 2015, 2016 or whatever it is."

When Wolves coach Rick Adelman was asked Love requesting a trade, he said, "Really? C'mon? You know, he got 42 points last night and we won the game. Some of this stuff comes out of nowhere. That's so far in the future, I don't even worry about that. I just worry about the fact, it didn't look like he was going anywhere last night and that's the direction I wanted. In this world today: `What's LeBron going to do next year? What's Carmelo going to do next year?' Who cares? It's going to happen, it's going to happen. In Kevin's situation, he's here with us. I'm glad as the coach that he is with us. I've never heard anything about that. He certainly hasn't said anything to me, so I don't dwell on that."

Pekovic participated in drills and other court work during Thursday's semi-practice and is expected to do more on Friday, Adelman said. But Adelman said Pekovic's return remains unknown and indicated it isn't imminent.