Cavs: Kevin Love needs to do more than just apologize this time

Kevin Love embarrassed himself on Monday’s game when the Cavs faced the Raptors.

It’s not hard to like Kevin Love. Heck, he’s one of this writer’s favorite players in the NBA. Yet, he’s getting away with way too much and the latest incident needs to be the last. By now, everyone knows what happened during the final few minutes of the third quarter of Monday’s game. Love became frustrated during an inbound pass from an official, and Love batted the ball onto the court, allowing for easy points from the Raptors. Fans of the Cavs, pundits, and even players alike couldn’t figure out what was going on.

Love apologized to his teammates that night, according to head coach J.B. Bickerstaff but only after Larry Nance showed him the viral clip, and emphasized how bad the optics were. On Wednesday, he made his apology public, telling Cleveland.com’s Chris Fedor that he knows he messed up.

"I love this team, first and foremost. I know that I (expletive) up. I apologize for that. I don’t go out there intending to upset anybody, to embarrass myself, to embarrass the organization. Because I feel that I’m a part of something bigger than myself here. But I know that I’m a good human being. I know that in some cases, I’m misunderstood. And that’s fine. That’s fine. I love Cleveland. I (expletive) ride with Cleveland till the day I die."

He also said he wants to remain with the Cavs, though there are many in the media who don’t believe that’s true. Even his teammate, Collin Sexton, has made it clear he’s fed up with Love’s behavior.

Kevin Love is making outbursts a habit during his Cavs tenure.

Someone once said, “when someone shows you who they are, believe it”, and Love is showing fans who he is. If this were an isolated incident, it would be a non-story but just over the last 14 months, there have been several more incidents where Love has “lost his cool”. There was the time he started attacking a chair, which isn’t healthy behavior. No mental health professional would tell you that beating up inanimate objects is healthy. Then, just four days after that, he screams at Koby Altman. Then, that very night, he whipped the ball at Cedi Osman out of frustration.

Later in the same game, he gave up on a play, as Sports Illustrated wrote; “Love went on to show disinterest in the game after not making an effort to cover a driving layup.”

This also wasn’t the first time Love screamed at Altman and disrespected someone in the organization, as he did that previously in 2019.

Those incidents don’t even include the rumors that Love was undermining John Beilein during the former coach’s short tenure in the organization. Nor does it include the time during LeBron James’ last year with the team where Love apparently faked being sick to not play in a game.

Again, any one of these issues isn’t necessarily alarming but together paint a picture of a player who needs to be moved. In a normal, healthy, work environment, you don’t get passes for screaming at your boss (not once, but twice at least), trying to destroy your other bosses ability to do his job, react with violence in the workplace or do anything remotely close to what Love has done.

Because he’s an athlete, fans make excuses for antics like this. Yet, it’s not war. Love isn’t a trauma surgeon. The level at which he’s reacting isn’t in line with the job he has. If he’s this overwhelmed, it’s time to retire. His reactions to frustration are anything but healthy. Anyone of you reading this who did anything remotely similar in your workplace would be fired on the spot.

Yet, we don’t hold athletes to the same standards we hold our co-workers. That has to stop. Love did a lot of good this offseason and it improved his reputation with the team. Yet, here we are, again hearing another excuse why Love again did what he did.

Blame it on whatever you’d like, but the Cavs need to demand more from Love this time.