Cleveland Cavaliers: 3 moves to make with LeBron James leaving

1. Determine  Kevin Love’s future

The Minnesota Kevin Love likely won’t walk through the door anytime soon. Still, the trimmed-down post player is a double-double machine with the propensity to put up 20 points and 10 rebounds a night. Clearly LeBron’s main sidekick last season, Love notched the second best offensive rating of his career (120) while scoring his third-most points per 36 minutes at 30.8.

In case you forgot, he’s made the All-Star team two years in a row.

Point being, Love is still a valuable commodity. At 29 years old, he is in his theoretical prime with a game that should age well. Love is a strong No. 2 player on a very good team.

In other words, Cleveland can probably get some pieces for the big man if it wants to trade him.

With a handful of contractually handcuffed players, the Cavaliers aren’t in rebuild mode like when LeBron last skipped town. Possibly worse, they appear to be in NBA purgatory.

Ideally, Love returns to his Minnesota form and Collin Sexton develops into the Russell Westbrook-like point guard Altman and co. hope he can be. If so — and those are two gigantic ifs — Cleveland competes for an Eastern Conference playoff spot.

If not, Cleveland is destined to be a middling team unless it deals Love for profitable prospects.

So, does Cleveland play the lottery by trading Love for future talent or hope he returns to his old form? Both are gambles with the odds not in the Cavs’ favor.