NBA star Kevin Love learns quickly how tough beach volleyball can be

Put Kevin Love on the sand and beach volleyball gets instant attention.

That's what Jose Cuervo wanted. That's what Jose Cuervo got.

Hans Stolfus understands. He's a former regular on the AVP Tour who won a silver medal in the 2007 Pan Am Games.

Sean Scott and John Hyden also understand. They're a very, very good beach volleyball team. Just days ago they won in Hermosa Beach. This week they're the No. 1 seed in the Manhattan Beach Open, which is part of the three-stop Jose Cuervo Pro Beach Volleyball Series.

"There's no resentment," Hyden said about all the cameras pointed at Love, a mere novice on the beach. "He brings attention to the sport that the sport needs."

"AVP let the sport down (when it shut down mid-tour last summer)," Stolfus said. "This is good for beach volleyball."

How much attention became clear to Stolfus, who played with Love, when he began to hear from old buddies back in Iowa.

"I played in AVP for five years," he said. "I never got one message. My old friends thought it was just a fun thing."

It did not calculate in the cornfields that Stolfus was a professional athlete.

"Now I'm getting messages from all the guys I knew in high school that say, `You're playing with Kevin Love!"' he said.

The Manhattan Beach Open got off to a, well,

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interesting start Thursday morning with Love-Stolfus playing Scott-Hyden. The score was 21-16, 21-15. Yes, Scott and Hyden won. Of course Scott and Hyden won.
Love exhaled when it was over, looked at a friend and said, "I'm just so happy."

He did not finish the sentence. It does not take a lot of imagination to add, "that I was not humiliated."

A shot of humility never hurts.

Love is a world-class athlete, the NBA double-double machine for the Minnesota Timberwolves. That's double-digit points and double-digit rebounds in a game. He's an NBA All-Star and a member of the U.S. FIBA 2010 world championship team.

Those who are into instant analysis no matter how little they know will quickly tell the world Love is much better than Shaquille O'Neal and probably ranks with Wilt Chamberlain, the most famous NBA star who had a run in the sand.

No contest between Love and Shaq. After only four weeks of training Love is far better.

Think about it. Four weeks. That's not a lot of time to pick up the nuances of where to go, when to go, how to pass, blocking, spiking and timing, among other things.

"When they serve the ball, it curves down," Love said. "It can be a knuckleball. It's difficult to handle."

Love, a month short of his 23rd birthday, also passes Chamberlain, who was somewhere between 35 and 40 when he first played on the beach. Wilt, a wise man, generally limited his play in tournaments to the six-man game.

But Love is not close to premier level in the two-man game. He can check with his father, Stan, a former Laker who grew up in Inglewood and was a basketball star at Morningside High. And, yes, he played volleyball at the beach.

Pop will tell him about Keith Erickson and Greg Lee.

Erickson is by far the best basketball-volleyball player of all time. He starred on John Wooden's first two NCAA championship teams at UCLA and was on a Lakers NBA championship team. He was a U.S. indoor volleyball Olympian with a minimum of indoor experience.

"Keith would win the paddleboard race from Catalina and then beat everyone on the beach in volleyball or football, whatever we were playing," said Mike O'Hara, winner of the first five Manhattan Beach Opens with Mike Bright.

Lee was a starter on two UCLA NCAA basketball championship teams who played a handful of games in the ABA and NBA. He's a two-time Manhattan Open champion with Jim Menges.

Not to be forgotten is Mike Dodd, a five-time Manhattan Beach winner, all with Tim Hovland. Dodd won silver in beach volleyball at the Olympics. A basketball star at Mira Costa High and San Diego State, he was a late cut by the Clippers. He ranks No. 2 on the basketball-beach volleyball list.

Truth be told, it might have been a humiliation Thursday had Scott and Hyden not been on cruise control. They've got a long, hard weekend ahead of them. There was absolutely no reason to work up a sweat.

Plus, the officiating was relaxed to make life a little easier on Love.

He'd probably scratch his head if told that and say something about how easy could it have been when in about 50 minutes he was sweating as if he had just finished playing for two or three hours in a hot gym with his summer workout partners Russell Westbrook (Leuzinger High, UCLA) and Derrick Rose.

The degree of difficulty of the assignment he accepted - he was the last seed in the tournament - was summed up by Stolfus, who had not played in two years (neck injury) until a recent tournament in Oregon.

"This is like two beach volleyball guys going to Rucker Park in Harlem and playing Kobe and LeBron in a 2-on-2 basketball game," he said.

Love may be in the best shape of his life during the early stages of the NBA lockout. Along with taking a class at UCLA with Trevor Ariza (Westchester High), Baron Davis and Westbrook, he's playing basketball six days a week, working with a trainer four days a week and doing yoga two to three times a week. His weight is down from the mid-260s to 240.

"I've slimmed down," he said proudly.

He moved better than expected. His hand-eye coordination is good. That's not unexpected. Thank you basketball, as well as tennis. He is athletic. Very athletic for a big man listed at 6-foot-10 but closer to 6-8 .

Not as athletic as the 6-5 Erickson, who had the skill set to play shortstop in baseball at El Segundo High, forcing his teammate Bobby Floyd, who would be a middle infielder in the major leagues, to play third base.

Love gets it.

"It wasn't easy," he said. "Those guys are tremendous."

He laughed.

"I've got my 10,000 hours playing basketball and they've got their 10,000 hours playing volleyball," he said.

He laughed some more.

"This gave me an excuse to go to the beach," he said.

It was a tough assignment. But someone had to do it.