Cleveland Cavs: Should the team trade Kevin Love?

The trade deadline is a few hours from this post, and all the talk of Kevin Love being traded has quieted so much that industry experts expect him to stay.

A few months ago the word was that Kevin Love was all but gone and on his way to Portland. Now, that’s no longer the case. The question about Love is being shipped out has changed from ‘when’ to ‘if’. Many think he’ll be traded in the off-seasn if he’s not moved by the Feb. 6 deadline but maybe that shouldn’t be the case.

Every time the word about Love is brought up, people dash to the “well, Cleveland can’t get equal value for him” statements. If that’s the case, why trade him at all? Why can’t Cleveland look at what Oklahoma City is doing and enact a quick turn-around plan that doesn’t need to take place over the course of seven years ala the 76ers?

The idea of a proper ‘how to rebuild a team’ plan is a lie. It almost never happens organically through the draft. Not unless a game-changing prospect enters the rookie pool. The odds of a LeBron James or Luka Donicic type being in this year’s draft is completely out of the question. If there’s no one single player that can revamp the franchise, why try to rebuild just through the draft?

Ideally, you keep Love, Kevin Porter Jr. , Cedi Osman, rehab Dylan Windler and re-sign Tristan Thompson. Then you ship out Collins Sexton, Darius Garland and a few down-the-road-picks for an instant impact player. Have the Cavs even called about possible players to trade for? Have they talked to Washington about Bradley Beal? What about Detroit and Luke Kennard? What about Phoenix and Devin Booker?

Do you really think the 9th pick in the 2020 NBA Draft will turn into a franchise player? He might, sure, but why not take a  swing at something guaranteed? Try and turn the “potential” of the draft pick and young prospects into a Kenard/Beal deal or bring in Booker and a point guard. This isn’t to say that Phoenix or Washington or whoever is looking to just get rid of valuable assets. These are merely for instance names but why shouldn’t the Cavs go chase down proven players in trades?

The guesswork on prospects and how they’ll turn out is done with established players, and you don’t need to wait another decade before you can market playoff tickets again. Teams are told that they have to rely on these unproven kids, but who says that’s the way to go? The Cavs have the assets to add two All-Star caliber players to this roster via trades. It’s really just a matter of if they want to expedite the process and whether or not they even know the right value for certain players.