Kevin Love entered the 2021-22 NBA season with an eye toward the future and was finally ready to embrace his new role with the Cleveland Cavaliers as a veteran presence for one of the NBA’s youngest rosters. In doing so, he also needed to welcome the idea that for perhaps the first time in his tenure as a Cav, he wouldn’t be given the role of starter regardless of health. With three games in the books for the Cleveland-based squad, it’s safe to say that Love appears to have bought in.
Love is reestablishing his value to both the Cavs and as a trade chip.
Barring an unlikely miracle occurring, the UCLA product will never live up to his hefty salary. That is a near certainty at this point. However, he can still be a steadying presence as a contributor off the bench on a nightly basis. He looks to be in an ideal position for the Wine and Gold and should probably remain anywhere in-between 15-25 minutes per game as has been the case through three.
Love, 33, saw the court for a little under 18 minutes in the season-opening loss to the Memphis Grizzlies and although his impact on the game wasn’t necessarily visible in the boxscore stats, that doesn’t mean for a millisecond that his occupancy of the court wasn’t felt.
Matched up with the slow-footed Kyle Anderson for much of his minutes, Love’s declining lack of mobility wasn’t much of a factor on the defensive end. He was often seen sagging off of Anderson to help defend in the post and it worked to an extent. While Love has never been known as an all-defensive caliber player, as long as he isn’t put into a bad spot due to an unfavorable switch or used as a paint protector, he’s still very useful.
Offensively the 6-foot-8 big is still a major pick-and-pop threat and from the elbow, as was the case on numerous possessions during the Cavs tilt with the Charlotte Hornets in which he saw the floor for a little under 24 minutes. He isn’t necessarily capitalizing on most of his opportunities just yet but being a threat as a legitimate floor spacer is great for this team.
If you were to base your opinion of him this season strictly off of his field goal and three-point percentages (28.6 and 12.5 percent respectively) you would think he’s unplayable but sooner or later these shot attempts should fall.
Love isn’t what he once was, but he’s still a heck of a rebounder and can still score in a variety of ways.
Gone are the days when Kevin Love would be a threat to pull down 13-plus boards a night, but he can still rebound with the best of them. He uses solid positioning to grab loose boards on the defensive end and even when he isn’t in position to get one he knows exactly how to box out opposing bigs to clear enough space for Cleveland’s other bigs to snag them.
This was on full-display against the Hornets and again during the team’s third game of the season against a very talented Atlanta Hawks team featuring not one, but two of the game’s best rebounders in Clint Capela, and John Collins, respectively.
In his 23 minutes of action versus the Hawks, Love’s scoring chops were visible as he put up 12 points on 3-of-7 from the field while canning his first three of the year. The UCLA alum also was active from the charity stripe, drawing fouls and going 5-of-6 from the line. Even when he wasn’t the one getting buckets he was constantly opening up cutting lanes or drawing attention away from others like this dish from the elbow to Cavaliers guard Ricky Rubio, in which he drew Trae Young’s eyes off of Rubio for an uncontested triple.
While he may never truly be able to be the star that he was earlier on in his career, Love still has some good basketball left in his tank. It would appear that this bench role is just what the proverbial doctor ordered for a Hall of Fame-caliber career.
Here’s to hoping that he can continue his inspired play deep into the Cavs season.
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October 26, 2021 at 04:00AM
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