Cleveland Cavaliers: Why Kevin Love Is So Important
The Cleveland Cavaliers were leading the Boston Celtics 3-0 in the first round of the 2015 NBA playoffs. They simply had to wrap up one game and stay healthy. The first part was easy. The second part was ruined when a Jae Crowder three-pointer missed the mark.
About two or three seconds later, this happened and ruined everything.
Love has since healed, and dispelled rumors about his dissatisfaction with Cleveland by signing a five-year max offer with the team. Now that he is healthy, the Cavaliers are reloaded and ready for another title run. A run to which Love is more critical than you may think.
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In fact, as LeBron James continues to age and (ever so slightly) decline, Love might become the most important player on the Cavs as far as title chances go. Kyrie Irving is a very good and game-changing player. LeBron James is still superhuman. However, the effects of injury, age, and other factors to the rest of the team make Love irreplaceable.
Love is a very talented offensive player, and in theory, he fits very well with the Cavaliers. The Cavaliers have so much offensive talent that ignoring Kevin Love is the least bad option for defenses. That is flat out scary.
Jonas Jerebko can’t leave LeBron with only one defender because he’s LeBron. As long as the Cavs find those passing angles Love can roll over teams with those long balls. It sounds like it should work, and it does. There’s almost no way to stop it.
Even when he’s not getting the ball, the effect of his spacing is easy to recognize. He opens the floor when defenders shadow him, which makes it easier for LeBron, Irving, Thompson or anyone else to attack the rim or work in the paint.
Love is also still an excellent post-up player, even though it is a skill he did not get to use last season. He is not the strongest player on the block, but he’s controlled and intelligent when operating with his back to the basket. He also has the ability to hit difficult shots from further out in the high post.
Love is also a very good passer. He has an accurate arm that allows him to rebound and throw precise passes to guys leaking out in transition.
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This points to one thing that makes Love so big for the Cavs. His multiple talents allow the Cavs to have significant control over the tempo of the game. NBA basketball is very much about who can assert their desired style of play, because it forces one team to play on the terms of the other.
With Love on the floor, the Cavs can slow the pace by feeding him in the post. They could find a middle pace by using Love as a spot-up option in the half court. They could also push the pace by letting Love feast on the glass and fling outlet passes.
That ability to play multiple styles was an identifying quality of the Golden State Warriors. They have multiple ways to play many different sizes and types of basketball. The presence of Love on the floor puts Cleveland in a position to do that much more easily.
More importantly, Love’s inside-outside talent allows the Cavs to play modern NBA basketball while also punishing it. The shift to small-ball in the NBA has made some bigs less valuable, but not Love. A healthy, well-used Kevin Love can continue to be a deterrent to small lineups.
The drawbacks of small-ball are a) difficulties on the glass and b) struggles guarding multiple interior scoring threats. The Cavs displayed the former in the Finals, when Tristan Thompson, Timofey Mozgov, and LeBron did manage to beat the Warriors on the glass. Love can do that too, while adding a new dimension the the offense.
Imagine the Finals with Love healthy, and imagine this is Harrison Barnes instead of Matt Barnes
Does that mean the Cavs win the series? Probably not. However, that does become a much more potent offensive attack if other teams can’t go super small. Thompson is a good player, but he can’t take small guys one-on-one like Love can.
On the flip side, the Cavs can go smaller with Love at center if the other team does not have a tough interior scorer who can beat Love at the rim. LeBron may not like playing power forward, but health permitting, a line-up of Irving-Smith-Shumpert-LeBron-Love could destroy the entire world.
With the amount of spacing they could put on the floor, Love could demolish guys one-on-one in the post or in a pick-and-roll.
The counter here is that Kevin Love is not a good defender. Sometimes it’s worth asking whether a guy who at least works hard defending the perimeter (e.g. Thompson) against other stretch 4s (e.g. Draymond Green) is the best option.
Maybe that’s true. However, options are very important to succeeding in the NBA. Options- and Steve Kerr– are what made the Warriors not just really good but historically unstoppable.
Now, Love reaching his peak usefulness for the team has involved a change is his role. His usage is down from 28.8 percent in his final year with the Wolves to 21.7 percent last season. His field goal attempts per game was the lowest it had been since his sophomore season.
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Three pointers made up the largest portion of his field goal attempts in his career, and the percentage of his threes that came from the corner was up about 20 percent higher than it had ever been.
Having Love out on the perimeter sacrifices his ability to use his post scoring skills. It also limits his ability to get rebounds. His offensive rebound percentage has declined every year he’s been in the league. The Cavs can be a deadly rebounding team without Love, but they can’t get a better combo of ability on the glass and offensive versatility.
The Cavs need to maximize Love’s value. He should not be super rich man’s James Jones. He can do a lot of things with the ball, and his versatility gives the Cavs the ability to adapt to a variety of different styles of play.
Kevin Love can open the floodgates of potential for the Cavs. The multiple talents he brings to the table give the Cavs a kind of versatility they lacked in the 2015 Finals. Using that versatility is key to their success.
LeBron is easily their best player, but as we’ve seen, it usually takes three stars to win a championship. Love needs to be that third star, and he can be if he is unleashed.
Next: 25 Best Players to Play for the Cleveland Cavaliers
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