Catching up with Kevin Love

Kevin Love has spent a good part of summer training in Los Angeles, but soon he will head back to Minnesota, where he will be a rookie with the Timberwolves.

He was at UCLA today for the official unveiling of the new EA Sports NCAA Basketball '09 cover, which features the former Bruin center.

During a news conference, Love mentioned that his teammates always used to play last year's version of the game, and the first person would pick UCLA as their team. He hesitated when asked about his backup team, then answered either Pitt or NAU — the former teams of Bruin Coach Ben Howland, who also was on hand.

We'll write more about the video game, which comes out in December, in another post. In the meantime, here's a fun conversation with Love about orange chicken, California girls and who he'd like to dunk on in the NBA ...

Adam Rose: When you head back to Minnesota, what are you going to miss the most about L.A.?

Kevin Love: The sunshine. I won't miss the traffic, but I'll miss the sunshine. I'll miss UCLA; I'll miss my teammates ...

AR: Wait. My bad. Terrible question. Let's try this. Rank these four: Diddy Reise, In-N-Out, the girls and the weather.

KL: Girls, weather, In-N-Out, Diddy Reise.

AR: Not much love for Diddy Reise?

KL: I'm not a sweets guy. I'd rather have a good hamburger, some fries and a Coke. Something like that.

AR: What's your favorite food around campus?

KL: When I was here? They've got pretty good stuff up at Ackerman Union. I usually go to the salad bar to try and keep it healthy. Before the season, when I really didn't know what I was doing with choosing my food, I was going to Sbarro, the burrito place up there, Panda Express ...

AR: Orange chicken?

KL: The orange chicken is so good. Once I started getting going, though, I started going to more healthy places.

AR: You obviously got in great shape heading into the draft. How do you feel now? Even better? Maintaining?

KL: Mostly maintaining. I've been told by numerous people that you don't want to go into training camp already peaked. You want to go in great shape, maybe the best shape of your life, but you don't want to peak out too early. You only play up to 40 games a season in college, but in the NBA you're playing 82 games plus. You're going back-to-back. Your training camp is going to be tough. You're going to be in the best shape of your life, so you want to prepare yourself for a marathon, not just a sprint.

AR: I think we're here to talk about video games ... if you were to pick one guy besides yourself in the 2008 version, who's your favorite?

KL: I'd have to go with Russell. Obviously on my team, Russell Westbrook. He was a high flier and he was fun to watch the whole year. We were in the games watching some of the dunks he did; he was pretty special.

AR: If you could dunk on anyone in the game, who would it be?

KL: Probably Tyler Hansbrough.

AR: More out of respect than anything else, if you could dunk on anybody in the league this season, who would you want it to be?

KL: Out of respect! Make sure you put that on the record!

AR: I'll think about it ... OK, I promise.

KL: Probably Kevin Garnett. Just because he was defensive player of the year and I've played against him up here in the Men's Gym. Plus he was in Minnesota, so ... trying to get back at him! That'd probably be it.

AR: What's easier for you ... making a half-court shot in real life or in the video game?

KL: Probably in real life, because I've had a few more chances. I made a few of them in high school.