The Cavaliers are 7-3 since Tyronn Lue took over as head coach for David Blatt, and in that time Kevin Love has seen an uptick in his production – 16.4 points and 7.8 rebounds – from his ugly slump that began when Kyrie Irving returned from injury.
The Cavs have seen enough that they’ve decided Love will not be made available at the NBA trade deadline, according to Adrian Wojnarowski of Yahoo. By doing so, they’ve also locked up another season without a championship for LeBron James as a Cavalier.
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While Love, Irving, and James have played better as a trio under Lue, and run the floor more, the Cavaliers’ biggest issue against the Western Conference powers, the Warriors and Spurs, remains. Love, Tristan Thompson, Timofey Mozgov and Anderson Varejao are all big men that can not share the floor when teams space the floor, and that happens to be both teams’ specialty.
Trading Love would have been a bitter pill to swallow; they signed him to a max contract this offseason and dealt 2014 No. 1 pick Andrew Wiggins to acquire him. But Love would have netted what the Cavaliers need most; another athletic wing player who can shoot 3-pointers and play defense. They could have engaged the Celtics about a package including swingman Jae Crowder, or the Suns about trading for Markieff Morris. Now, they’ll likely have to settle with playing one of those four bigs in an NBA Finals matchup – if they get there – while the other three sit and watch the Warriors run Draymond Green at center.
Cavs Should Explore Kyrie Irving Trades, Not Kevin Love
The Cavaliers tried to recreate the Big 3 that the Heat won two titles with, starring James, Dwyane Wade and Chris Bosh, but the Cleveland trio hasn’t matched up. Love isn’t as versatile or effective as Bosh defensively, nor has he taken to the third wheel role as well. Irving has been just as injury-prone as Wade, but created less for his teammates, and at times shot worse from the outside.
Aside from James, here are Cleveland’s wing players: Iman Shumpert, J.R. Smith, Mo Williams, Matthew Dellevedova, Richard Jefferson and James Jones. Trading Love could have alleviated that weakness, but now they will trot out some combination of those overmatched veterans vs. two of the best offenses in the NBA if they make the Finals.
Expect Love trade chatter to heat up again in the offseason.
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