Cleveland Cavaliers: Is This The Last Of Kevin Love?
Could Sunday night’s championship victory have been Kevin Love’s last game as a member of the Cleveland Cavaliers?
The Cleveland Cavaliers are your 2015-16 NBA champions. As shocking as that performance and series as a whole were, it’s even more crazy to think one of Cleveland’s top priorities in the offseason will be to trade one of its highest-paid players.
Kevin Love‘s name has been winding through the rumor mill all season long. You would think now that Cleveland has done the unthinkable and defeated the Golden State Warriors, they would try and keep a similar roster, as most championship teams hope to do.
Love’s averages of 16 points and 9.9 rebounds per game don’t indicate the constant scrutiny he has undergone for the majority of the 2015-16 season. He had some big games, but they were outweighed by the nights where he hardly even looked like he was a part of the game.
There were rumblings about his relationships with teammates and how he was pretty much on his own. To add to that, Love has had times where he made some controversial statements aimed toward LeBron James that raised many eyebrows.
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All of the drama that has taken place over the past two years could indeed be put to rest now that the Cavaliers can call themselves champions. Was Sunday night’s historic victory enough redemption to keep Love in Cleveland?
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At this point, it’s unknown whether or not the Cavaliers will try and obtain assets in exchange for Love. One constant suitor in trade talks has been the
.
General manager Danny Ainge met with Love’s agent last week to possibly get a feel for how Love would like playing for the Celtics. The Cavaliers would be likely to ask for both Jae Crowder and Avery Bradley, or one of the two and a pick in Thursday’s draft.
After being a non-factor in the first six games of the series (missing Game 3 due to a concussion), Love had a clutch performance in Sunday night’s game.
He didn’t put up crooked numbers in the point column (only finishing with nine for the game), but he was a force on the glass finishing with 14 rebounds.
Love embraced James immediately after the buzzer sounded as if he was saying thank you for getting him the first championship of his eight-year career.
In the moment, the thought of Love not being on the team for the 2016-17 season would be hard to fathom, but you have to think about the season as a whole.
Kevin Love needed to step up in Game 7, and he did: https://t.co/3XEUqm2E2z pic.twitter.com/RLhUlVMPE5
— USA TODAY NBA (@usatodaynba) June 20, 2016
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Crowder is a perfect fit and exactly what the Cavaliers need in order to give them the best shot to repeat as champions. If James would give in to playing primarily power forward, Crowder would be the ideal 3-and-D guy to put at small forward.
Love’s rebounding ability would be felt at first, but it wouldn’t be anything that James and Crowder both couldn’t replace. That’s not to mention Crowder’s defensive ability is like night and day in comparison to Love’s.
Love’s five-year, $110 million contract brings concerns that teams may not be prepared to take it on, but with the cap rising now to an estimated $94 million, his deal doesn’t look as daunting.
It isn’t common for a championship team to look to trade one of the pieces they considered so valuable at one time, but it has shown that Love doesn’t quite fit into what Cleveland needs.
In the NBA, if you aren’t looking for ways to get better every offseason, there is no possible way you’re winning a title, let along repeating.
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The move from here is to get as many assets as you can that fits the mold of the Cavaliers and part ways with Love.