Trading for Love right call for Cavaliers
MINNEAPOLIS — Maybe we should’ve seen this coming. Chris Bosh certainly did.
“It’s going to be very difficult for him,” Bosh said in October. “It’s extremely difficult and extremely frustrating. He’s going to have to deal with that.”
Maybe we should’ve seen this coming. Glen Taylor certainly did.
“I think he’s going to be the third player on the team,” the Minnesota Timberwolves owner said in August. “I don’t think he’s going to get a lot of credit if they do really well. I think he’ll get blame if they don’t do well. He’s around a couple guys that are awfully good.”
Five months after Kevin Love was traded to the Cavaliers in a summer blockbuster, both Bosh and Taylor have been proven correct. The adjustment to playing alongside LeBron James has been incredibly difficult for Love, who clearly is the third option on his new team. In perhaps the most damning indictment yet, Detroit Pistons Coach Stan Van Gundy flippantly said last week Love rarely comes up in game preparation before facing the Cavs.
“That’s how talented they are,” Van Gundy said. “You don’t even talk about him in your preparation hardly. That’s how good the other guys are.”
All of which has led to suggestions the Cavs should explore moving Love in the next three weeks prior to the trade deadline. How ridiculous. Halfway through his first season in Cleveland, Love now understands what Bosh was talking about when he explained to Bleacher Report how playing with LeBron James changes everything.
The touches aren’t as plentiful. The looks at the basket aren’t the same. The offense no longer flows through Love as it did in Minnesota, just as it previously did through Bosh in Toronto.
Now Love has to fight just to touch the ball in the second half — and that’s if he’s even in the game. Twice this season, he has been benched for an entire fourth quarter, which never would’ve happened with the Timberwolves.
Everyone knew an adjustment was coming, that his numbers would take a hit, but few could’ve imagined it being this dramatic.
Love returned to Target Center on Saturday averaging 17.2 points, down from 26.1 last season, and shooting 43 percent. He hasn’t scored this little since his second season in the league.
Andrew Wiggins, meanwhile, the prized rookie the Cavs dealt away to obtain Love, entered Saturday averaging 15.1 points and shooting the same 43 percent. Wiggins is even shooting a better percentage than Love from the three-point line.
Wiggins may develop into a superstar, but even in hindsight, the Cavs had little choice but to make the deal.
It was perhaps a bit of foreshadowing. Indeed, Love has been left to do more dirty work this season than ever before. His touches aren’t as plentiful. His looks aren’t the same. But he looks different, too. He is committing more to the defensive end and he looks like a winner playing on one of the few teams with a legitimate chance to win a championship.
Regret the trade? Forget it. The Cavs would do it all again. It’s their best chance at ending 50 years of Cleveland sports misery.