Kevin Love Trade Enough to Land LeBron James to Cavs?

As we noted earlier this morning in our piece on , the notes are crazy right now. An artist, a personal trainer, random friends, etc all say James is coming back to the Cleveland Cavaliers. Yet are any of them worth getting our hopes up for? Since it is all flying around I will reiterate what my source, I don’t have (m)any, said a week or so ago: His wife wants him to return but he wasn’t so sure. Take that for what it is.

There are a few things that we do now about the James free agent decision: He wants to make the max money and he wants to join a roster that has championship possibilities. Last night this tweet, which was in a line of tweets about James, grabbed attention:

Same exec feels it's a Miami-Cleveland battle & LeBron is waiting for a team to make a splash.
— Joe Kotoch Real Estate (@luxuryagentchi) July 5, 2014

So what is a splash? Easy to say that getting extended is a huge move. Getting the #1 pick and bringing in “Shooting Guard” is a splash. Still having , , , and , all first round picks, has to be a little intriguing for James as well. Yet how can the Cavs make a splash that could solidify his return to Cleveland? Say it with me “KEVIN LOVE”

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So lets take a look at a few different moves that could help the Cavs get Love:

Sign and Trade to the LA Clippers.

Hawes and the Clippers have already come to an agreement on a contract but the Clippers would like to do a sign and trade, as it would allow them to make another move. , with his partially guaranteed for only$1.5 million dollar contract, and/or draft pick would be an appropriate trade for Hawes. The Cavs get a young player or two as well as a contract that can be used to cut salary cap space for themselves or the Timberwolves.

Sign and Trade to the Atlanta Hawks

The Hawks have cap space but may not have enough to sign Deng to the contract he wants. That would require getting rid of some salary to make a sign and trade happen with the Cavaliers. Again the Cavs can use this to their advantage to get young talent and/or draft picks. The Hawks could send Dennis Schroeder and along with a 2nd round pick to the Cavs for the sign and traded Deng. Schroeder, Jenkins and the pick could be useful for the Cavs or can be moved on to the T’Wolves in a trade for Love.

Trade to the Milwaukee Bucks

Jack is not a player that fans seem interested in keeping around. , the new coach of the Bucks, was interested in getting him with the Nets. The Bucks are in a need of a point guard and seem like they want to try to compete quickly. Adding Jack to the backcourt helps the scoring load on a team very limited outside of rookie . A draft pick and may be enough to get Jack.

Trade for

The Cavs do not have to make any of the above trades to make a deal for Love but could decide to go in that direction to get more youth that possibly the T’Wolves might want while also keeping a good amount of youth on their roster to build for the long term. The Wolves have the choice of a number of young players out of the group of Bullock, Wilcox, Schroeder, Jenkins, Middleton, Waiters, Thompson, Bennett, Karasev and Zeller. The Cavs would likely move 3 or 4 of those players of the Wolves liking. The Cavs can also offer up the contracts of Crawford and to give the the Wolves more cap space. The Cavs also have a number of draft picks that would be added to the trade. Putting all of that together gives us this trade:

Cavs Receive: Kevin Love and

T’Wolves Receive: Dion Waiters, Dennis Schroeder, Khris Middleton, Tristan Thompson, contracts of Jamal Crawford, and Anderson Varejao (all cut to save a ton of money) and 3 first round draft picks (Best of MIA/MEM picks and Cavs pick in ’15 plus Cavs ’17 pick) and 2 seconds.

For the Wolves they build around and Dion Waiters backcourt with Thompson helping up front. Schroeder along with and III give the Wolves a group of young players to develop over time. The 3 first round picks, especially the better of the Heat/Grizzlies pick, will give the Wolves a ton of resources to rebuild. If they were not able to make the playoffs with Love, adding is not going to get them there either. Instead they take a bevvy of youth and picks, along with cap relief, from the Cavs.