Cleveland Cavaliers: 2019-20 NBA season preview
By Phil Watson
Storyline 2: When will the Love story end?
Kevin Love is now 31 years old, entering his 11th NBA season and is coming off a year in which he sat out 60 games after having surgery to repair a damaged toe.
He’s not exactly the right age to fit with a rebuild and with three years and $91.5 million still remaining on the four-year, $120 million extension he signed last summer, he’s not exactly priced for a rebuilding club, either.
It appears the question is not if Love will be traded, but rather when.
It’s not likely to happen before mid-December, given that roughly half of the players in the league have trade restrictions after signing with new teams as free agents this summer.
Cleveland will try to hold out to get maximum future value in any potential Love deal, which could mean they hold onto the two-time All-NBA stretch 4/5 until nearer the trade deadline in early February.
At that point, contenders looking to make a splash will be sufficiently incentivized to potentially overpay to bring in a proven veteran for their stretch run.
That is, of course, provided Love can stay healthy. He missed 22 games in 2016-17 and 23 in 2017-18 before playing in just 22 a season ago and in his limited action last season, he posted the second-worst overall shooting percentage of his career at 38.5 percent.
He also continued his move further from the rim, taking a career-high 6.7 3-point attempts per game and, not coincidentally, grabbing a career-low 1.5 offensive rebounds a night.
He still averaged a double-double — 17.0 points and 10.9 rebounds — because he’s still a load on the defensive glass, where he pulled down a whopping 40.0 percent of the available rebounds when he was on the court.
The upset of the year could be if Kevin Love is still on the Cleveland Cavaliers roster come Feb. 8, the morning after the trade deadline.