By JOSH HELLER
Staff Writer
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As a basketball fan, the new story about Kevin Love’s possible future with the Cleveland Cavaliers is one that makes me laugh.
Last week, a report surfaced that there was a chance that, at the end of this year, the star forward would opt out of his contract with the Cavaliers to enter the free agency. In the offseason, the Cavaliers received the number one overall pick in the draft, which they used to draft shooting guard/small forward Andrew Wiggins.
When the Cavaliers acquired LeBron James from free agency, it was concluded that they needed another star to go along with James and point guard Kyrie Irving. So, the Cavaliers sent Wiggins- along with former first overall pick Anthony Bennett- to Minnesota, in return for Love.
If the reports are true, then it appears that the Cavaliers sent two former first-overall picks to Minnesota for a one year rental of Love, and it’s not as if Love has been stellar in this young season. So far, Love is averaging only 18 points (compared to 26 last year), 0.2 blocks (career low), and 10.2 rebounds (his lowest since his rookie year), per game.
The Cavaliers, as a team, are struggling as well. James has been fine for the Cavs; however, his teammates’ performances have been sub-par. For the first few games, the Cavaliers were at the bottom of the league in assists per game.
With this report, the question popped up- where will Love go next year? As a Knicks fan, I was hoping that the answer would be New York. Since Amar’e Stoudemire and Andrea Bargnani will be unrestricted free agents next year, and with their humongous contracts out of the organization, it made perfect sense to me.
Love would make a good team with Anthony and two up-and-coming stars, Iman Shumpert and Tim Hardaway Jr. However, this was probably just the Knicks fan in me talking. Many reports also surfaced that Love would consider going to the Lakers.
But just a few days later, these reports were basically shot down, as reporters said that going to the Lakers would make no sense.
With Kobe’s future uncertain, and not many great young pieces for the Lakers (aside from a healthy Julius Randle), Love would not be a good fit there. However, I do think that it would be interesting to see how such a big market like Los Angeles would eat up Love.
He was in a small market in Minnesota for most of his career, and Cleveland isn’t much like Chicago or New York. I think Love would easily be a fan favorite in Los Angeles if Bryany retired.
Honestly, I’m not exactly sure where else- besides New York- would be a great fit for Love. One of the other places where Love could be a fairly nice fit would be in Minnesota, but obviously he’s been there before.
Love’s numbers in Minnesota were fantastic, and if you put him along Wiggins, Ricky Rubio, and Nikola Pekovic, he could really thrive. But I am not sure if he would want to return there, or even if the organization would want him back.
Of course, this report is only a rumor, filed by NBA.com’s Sam Smith. No one can really predict what is going to happen until we get to free agency next year. Smith said Love would “seriously consider” opting out of his contract with the Cavaliers to go to another location, but we can’t be too quick to judge.
Sure, the Cavaliers are struggling so far this year, but it has been fewer than 10 games. Sure, the new “Big Three” is struggling together, but it’s been fewer than 10 games. Sure, Love’s numbers are some of the lowest of his career, but it’s been fewer than 10 games.
My point is that this is a very, very young season. Regression to the mean is a part of statistics, so it’s fair to assume that the Cavaliers will get better. They are still my pick to win the East, but I think they will fall to a team out of the West. But it’s too early to be predicting that now, so we’ll re-visit that topic later in the season.
