3 reasons to celebrate Kevin Love on Valentine’s Day 2022

Kevin Love is having a resurgent season for the Cleveland Cavaliers.

Kevin Love is doing everything he can to prove that he’s a Cleveland Cavaliers legend by coming off the bench and helping the team contending for the playoffs. He’s a Sixth-Man of the Year Award contender and is a key cog in this Cavs team run. So on this Valentine’s Day, we’re looking at some reason to celebrate Love.

Why Valentine’s Day? Because his last name is love, the holiday is about love, it’s a shoehorned reason for a Kevin-Love-appreciation post but it’s at least a reason. Also, his uncle was in the Beach Boys, so maybe there’s something there that you can draw from as a reason.

So let’s talk up the big man.

Three reasons to celebrate Cleveland Cavaliers’ Kevin Love this Valentine’s Day

Best three-point efficiency of his career

Statistically, this is his third-best year shooting threes. He’s hitting at a clip of 39.2% this year, and in 2017-2018 he shot 41.6% and in 2010-2011 he shot 41.7%. So why is this his best year shooting if he’s been more accurate before? Good question, and it comes down to efficiency. In the ’10-’11 season, he only shot three three-pointers per game. It’s much easier to be more accurate the fewer shots taken. In his ’17-’18 season, he was slightly less accurate but was shooting far more, upping his total three’s taken per game to 5.6. Much harder to maintain that accuracy with the increased volume. This year, he’s shooting over six threes per game. In years he’s shot at least six threes per game, he shot around 36% to 37%. This year, he’s hitting 39.5% He’s clearly hitting at his best rate ever.

Stellar defense

It isn’t just his three-point shooting clip that has been the best of his career, but his advanced metrics have never seen him play defense this well before. According to RAPTOR, Love is posting a +2.0 defensive score, which is the highest of his career (dating back to ’13-’14). There were times when Love was in Minnesota that people believed his poor defense was why they lost so often. Now, Love is one of the more reliable defenders on the team.

Leadership and guidance

Lastly, the growth of the young players has to be, in part, responsible to Love. He’s had his fair share of ups and downs, and it’s been bad at times. Real bad. Yet, he’s found his way back from those darker days and is a far better guide for the young Cavaliers. There seems to be a lot of trust between him and guys like Darius Garland and Evan Mobley. That helps the situation so much and his eagerness to come off the bench has shown everyone that if a five-time All-Star, with an NBA title, is willing to put his ego aside, everyone should. That didn’t seem like something we could say last year but things have changed quite a bit.