The Cleveland Cavaliers gave up a lot to get Kevin Love and he looked like a surplus part on offense throughout the regular season and then possibly an inferior part during the playoffs when a defensive identity emerged with Tristan Thompson after he was lost to a dislocated shoulder.
With a five-man unit of Love, LeBron James, Kyrie Irving, Timofey Mozgov and J.R. Smith, the Cavaliers looked indestructible once they were all assembled in January. The Cavaliers assumed a successful slow paced, defensive system once Love was lost with LeBron carrying the offense and setting up their spot-up shooters with Thompson and Mozgov providing value on offense in the form of extra possessions on the glass. Even when they were winning games and winning series, the Cavaliers were hardly efficient on offense and had only one way to win. Cleveland never had a Plan B to counter the Warriors the way they could have with Love and Irving.
Love’s production dropped dramatically in his first season with the Cavaliers as he took on a much smaller role and played more on the perimeter.
Love was a 28+ usage rate player in each of his three final seasons with the Minnesota Timberwolves and that dropped to 21.7 with the Cavaliers. His rebound rate dropped slightly, while his assist rate was cut in half from 13-14. The confounding part of Love’s first season with the Cavaliers was his drop in True Shooting Percentage; Love was seemingly going to get a ton of easy buckets and single coverage, but it was simply more three-point shots, which should complement the rest of his game on offense rather than be a main focal point. Love shot 41.2 percent of his attempts from the three-point line.
It is frustrating and also difficult to adjust to carrying a near playoff team in the Western Conference as a high volume player to being the third option on offense where less is often more.
The best chance to appreciate something is to take it away and that cut both ways for the Cavaliers and Love after the injury.
In Love’s first-person essay announcing his decision to remain with the Cavaliers, he revealed that Game 1 of The NBA Finals as an injured bystander was where he effectively made his decision. Being that close to basketball’s best stage and getting to play with the generation’s best player, an excellent young point guard, a huge, mobile center and an owner that will not be deterred by any type of luxury tax bill, made the decision easy for Love. If the Knicks, Lakers or Celtics were in a situation in which Love would come in as the missing piece to immediately contend, the calculus may have changed, but he’d revert back to a version of his Wolves’ days in a higher pressure market.
The Cavaliers would have had no way of replacing Love had he left and trading away Andrew Wiggins for a single disappointing season. They should incorporate him better in Year 2 and stagger the minutes of Love with LeBron and Irving so he can carry the offense of the second unit to fully utilize his best skill-sets, which also would allow the LeBron, Thompson and Mozgov frontcourt to continue with heavy minutes as well.
With Love, Thompson, Mozgov and Anderson Varejao, not to mention LeBron at the four, it will be difficult to find enough minutes for everyone when everyone is healthy, but that realistically will be rare. LeBron should probably get his regular season minutes below 35 and total games below 65 so he can again be at full strength during the playoffs. That means a lot of Love.
There are two especially invaluable aspects of the deal for the Cavaliers beyond Love’s on-court contributions. Love doesn’t have a no trade clause as those can only come when a player has four or more seasons with the team signing him and also eight total years of service. If a solution to use Love fully doesn’t happen or if he’s unhappy with the situation, the Cavs could easily trade him into another team’s cap space in 2016 or 2017.
Love also took the long-term security instead of the 1+1 deal that was widely expected, which is the biggest win for the Cavaliers.
Whatever was agreed upon in unspoken ways last offseason was written in blood because Kevin Love fully fulfilled his end.
Grade for the Cavs: A
The fit for Love with the Cavaliers wasn’t as bad as it seemed at times, but it was certainly awkward. Chris Bosh warned that this could happen last October and it played out as true.
It’s such a unique situation for Love that he has to see it through and the #UnfinishedBusiness tagline fits. Getting to play with LeBron and compete for a title in a perpetually weak Eastern Conference is certainly not worth giving up on.
From a financial perspective, not betting on himself with a 1+1 deal feels incredibly shortsighted. Love has had several fluky injuries in his career, but he doesn’t turn 27 until September and it would have taken something truly catastrophic for him not to get a new contract with the salary cap going up. Love could have signed for the same annual amount for this season, opt out and then sign a five-year deal in 2016 with the Cavaliers for more than $150 million.
Love won't become a free agent again until he's in his thirties and his game should age relatively well to get another big payday, but the upside of gambling to get to 2016 was well worth the risk for a guy who has already had one big professional payday and grew up with privilege.
Love left tens of millions of dollars on the table and has less control over this career today than he did yesterday (or last offseason if that’s when it was all decided before the trade to Cleveland).
Grade for Kevin Love: C-
