Cavs Country Needs To Slip Into Chill Mode Over Kevin Love
Maybe it’s time to zip into chill mode when it comes to Kevin Love, because it’s becoming a joke how everything he does as a member of the Cleveland Cavaliers is overanalyzed to excruciating levels.
Ambiguous Tweets, left-out-of Instagram photos, picking another player for MVP besides his own teammate; This was destined to happen. The Cavs are the center of the basketball world and Love is one of the focal points because the Cavs traded budding superstar and No. 1 overall pick Andrew Wiggins for a shot to win now.
Love can’t escape the controversy, but has he’s been perfect soldier–averaging a double-double per game? Sure, 16-10 isn’t 26-12, but he’s teammates with LeBron James and Kyrie Irving. His numbers were supposed to dip. Yet the world constantly wants to ask: What’s wrong?
Yes, Love has been absent in the fourth quarter, and depending on what you believe, that may be because of Love’s back, or it may just be David Blatt’s weird decision. It’d be easy for a star player to have a gripe with this issue, but not Love. Rather than moan, he builds up teammates Tristan Thompson and James Jones, who have played some important fourth quarter minutes lately, via complex.com:
"“…[Not playing in the fourth quarter] can be tough, at times you kind of have to swallow your pride, but in a lot of those games I think—I don’t know if it’s been three, four, five games—I believe that we’ve won, I don’t know, you’ll have to check that but I believe in James Jones, he told me only one season he hadn’t made the playoffs, he gets in there and mixes it up, Tristan Thompson is a live, active body, we have different guys on this team that can step up and play big. Yeah, I mean it’s just one of those things.”"
To see Love’s true value, Cavs fans need to look no further than how he played in the Cavs’ blowout of the playoff bound Memphis Grizzlies.
Zach Randolph and Marc Gasol basically shut Love down when he was fighting for inside position, but the versatile power forward made Memphis pay by popping out and hitting some jumpers. Love finished with 22 points on 13 shots, but that’s not even the best part of his night. Love’s defense was stellar, as Blatt had his “stretch four” guarding Gasol.
Love menaced Gasol all night and the Spaniard had just three boards in the entire game. The 7-foot-1 center is grabbing nearly 8.0 rebounds per night.
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Kevin Love might not be having the season we all envisioned he’d have when the Wiggins deal was completed, but it doesn’t take away from the fact that the former UCLA star was brought here to contribute to a championship team.
With the Cavs about to clinch the No. 2 seed in the East, and the franchise owning the league’s best record since Jan. 15 (28-6), everything is going to plan.
And as far as free agency goes, Love will opt out after the season. It makes financial sense. Whether or not he re-ups remains in question. But that’s on the Cavs. They knew the risks when they dealt Wiggins.
Love’s future with the Cavs is still muddy, but the present couldn’t be more clear. He’s a major reason why the Cavs are contenders to win the NBA crown THIS YEAR–and that’s why he was brought to town.