Sometimes, trophies are not enough to measure a player’s value.

There are times as an NBA fan that one must realize that season-ending awards are not the sole weight by which should measure a player’s contribution to his team or the league as a whole.

If this were not the case, how else would we understand the brilliance that has marked Kevin Love’s rookie campaign in the NBA? Most traditional gauges (i.e. the Rookie-Sophomore Challenge, the All-Rookie Team) have so far and will likely continue to misappropriate his meriting distinction amongst his peers.

This should stand to discredit not Love, but instead towards the faulty measures by which we appraise a young player’s value.

Love will not win the Rookie of the Year award this spring. That distinction will probably belong to Chicago’s talented point guard Derrick Rose.

He will not even be the player most deserving of that award that will be overlooked. That will role will be filled by his college teammate, Oklahoma City’s Russell Westbrook.

Indeed, Love is but one of many standouts in this season’s illustrious rookie class that includes two of the best pure-scoring rookies this decade (O.J. Mayo and Eric Gordon), a future multiple All-Star pivot (Brook Lopez), and an offensive dynamo (Michael Beasley).

Through it all though, Love has made sure that he cannot be forgotten amongst his peers. In fact, the case could be made that on the basis of efficiency and per-minute productivity, he has outshone them all.

Last March when I first joined Hoops Addict, I wrote about Love that “every basketball coach, at every level of play, would sell their first-born child to have a big man that possessed the same level of basketball comprehension and intuition that (he) has.”

Clearly, I had been won over by his high basketball IQ, excellent post skills and outstanding footwork on the block.

While I felt Love would make an immediate impact on the pro level, even I have been shocked at the level of efficiency he has displayed for the better part of this season.

On their own and out of context, Love’s per game averages of 11 points and 8.0 rebounds would be impressive by rookie standards. But once one realizes that he plays under 26 minutes a game, the severe level of his productivity becomes more clear.

Love presently has a Player Efficiency Rating (PER) of 18.56, which places him an incredible 49th in league overall. For perspective, this rate values him ahead of David West.

In February, West was an All-Star for the second time. Love was not even invited to the Rookie-Sophomore game.

While the Timberwolves’ big man places second among rookies in PER, he is first among those playing more than 20 minute a night. Further proof of his alarming productivity is evidenced by his Rebounding Rate. This measure tracks the percentage of missed shots a player rebounds while on the court. Love’s rate of 20.8 not only places him head-and-shoulders above his fellow rookies, but it sees him rank fifth in the entire league.

For a young player to be such an effective and consistent rebounder is impressive. For a player that almost every pro scout thought lacked the leaping ability, endurance, and general athleticism to make in the league at all is phenomenal.

The UCLA product is also third among all rookies in Value Added, which is the estimated number of points a player adds to a team’s season total above what a “replacement player” would produce.

That high value is understood more clearly when one realizes Love has a rookie-high 23 double-doubles and a R/40 (Rebounds per 40 minutes) rate that stands at 14.2, the best amongst first years. His true shooting percentage of 54.3 also stands out, as do his averages for the month of March: 15.3 points and 9.4 rebounds in just 28 minutes.

Love’s dominance on the glass is even more staggering given that, until the All-Star break, he patrolled Minnesota’s paint with Al Jefferson, one of the most dominant rebounders in the entire league. Sharing air-space with Jefferson surely held his numbers down somewhat.

As he continues to develop and expand his game, Love’s biggest hurdled will most likely be his weight, and continuing to develop his body to be able to endure more playing time. As he pushes his 20-year-old man-child frame further along its development towards peaking for his physical abilities, he will develop greater agility and strength, which will give Minnesota a frightening pair of bigs to own the painted area upon Jefferson’s return from knee surgery next season.

If all goes as he would hope, Love may project as a hybrid of Brad Miller, Elton Brand and his own coach, Kevin McHale. What he lacks in size he has shown to more than make up for in terms of shooting range, deft touch around the rim, and unique passing capabilities, particularly in terms of the outlet ball.

Ultimately, Kevin Love’s rookie season will not be defined by trophies, or media honors. Those will surely go to flashier contemporaries that play in bigger markets, score more points a game on worse shooting, and whose games are more majestic in their athletic scope.

No, what will define Kevin Love’s rookie year is the manner of efficiency in which it was conducted, and the template it has laid for a great career to come.