Should the Cavaliers trade Kevin Love

[retaxis]

Free up Cap space, get a stretch 4 defender and some picks?

Maybe someone like Jay Crowder + Avery Bradley (If JR smith doesn't resign)

Throwing ideas out there.

P.S I think they should keep Love as you should never break up a championship team

[Wally450]

If it aint broke, don't fix it.

[BigKAT]

I agree with you.
Dallas tried staying ahead of the curve and looked what happened to them.


Plus, Kevin love's Plus minus was pretty good even when it seemed like he plays badly.

I think that Kyrie and Lebron benefit just from him being on the floor, that spacing is hard to come by.

Also, what you usually do against strong preimeter scoring playmakers, is you try to trap them on the pick and roll and block their passing lane to the rolling big.

The best antidote for that is the Pick and Pop. The Big man, the rolling guy distances himself and either allows a driving lane for the Pick guy, or gets wide open for the shot.

You got an excellent roll guy in Tristan Thompson.
And an excellent pop guy in Kevin love.

I don't see any reason to break this lineup at all.
It worked wonderfully against any team not named Golden state, and even then, Love's plus minus rating in game 7 and 5 shows that it might also worked against them.

[egokiller]

I agree with you.
Dallas tried staying ahead of the curve and looked what happened to them.


Plus, Kevin love's Plus minus was pretty good even when it seemed like he plays badly.

I think that Kyrie and Lebron benefit just from him being on the floor, that spacing is hard to come by.

Also, what you usually do against strong preimeter scoring playmakers, is you try to trap them on the pick and roll and block their passing lane to the rolling big.

The best antidote for that is the Pick and Pop. The Big man, the rolling guy distances himself and either allows a driving lane for the Pick guy, or gets wide open for the shot.

You got an excellent roll guy in Tristan Thompson.
And an excellent pop guy in Kevin love.

I don't see any reason to break this lineup at all.
It worked wonderfully against any team not named Golden state, and even then, Love's plus minus rating in game 7 and 5 shows that it might also worked against them.

Exactly, there is no need to fix the lineup. Now if these guys were having to go up against MJ, Pippen, Rodman defense then yes, but in this current league, no reason to split anything up.

[jbryan1984]

I am fine with keeping him but I wouldn't shy away from good offers. Love for Crowder, Bradley and a pick, I'd probably have to take that one. Like you said, especially with no JR. Irving/Bradley/Crowder/James/Thompson would probably be the best overall lineup in the league with a combination of pretty much everything.

[lilteapot]

No. Love and Thompson aggressively rebounding the basketball is a huge problem for Golden State since they have nobody to combat that. Keep him.

[swagga]

I am fine with keeping him but I wouldn't shy away from good offers. Love for Crowder, Bradley and a pick, I'd probably have to take that one. Like you said, especially with no JR. Irving/Bradley/Crowder/James/Thompson would probably be the best overall lineup in the league with a combination of pretty much everything.

no, you'd play the same style as golden state with less talent. keep love, he bring so much more than stats in the golden state matchup, especially now that draymond will have to man the middle alone.

[BigKAT]

no, you'd play the same style as golden state with less talent. keep love, he bring so much more than stats in the golden state matchup, especially now that draymond will have to man the middle alone.

Exactly.

I think people don't understand how much of a blow it was to lose Bogut for the regular season.

Sure, in the postseason you can get away with playing Draymond 20 mins a night at C.

But over 82 games? Good luck with that.
Last year they had a solid rotation of Ezeli, Speights and Bogut, with Draymond only taking the position when it was Death lineup time. Zaza's great, love that pickup. But I still think it was a mistake. It'll give teams more time to figure out the Draymond Green at center lineup.

Other then that, I agree that Kevin love give them something different.

[RedBlackAttack]

Love has become one of the more under-appreciated players in the league the last couple years.

I guess because he made a bunch of All-Star games in Minnesota and was an Olympian, people expect his game to jump off the page every game the way it did when the offense was totally built around him, but he is still a vital piece for the Cavs and they would absolutely suffer in the short-term and especially the long-term without him.

There are very few guys in the league who can be so versatile offensively that they can fit into any situation. With us, much of Love's time is devoted to spacing the floor while still being a beast on the boards. But, he can also be a very good low post player when asked to and is still very good at the elbow. He is an excellent passer with great vision for a big.

The Warriors are the worst possible matchup for him, and he still found a way to impact that series before it was over. Prior to that, he was huge for the Cavs in the playoffs and he would have matched up well with any against any other team.

Even his defense has never been as bad as his biggest critics make it out to be. He is slow afoot, so that sometimes gives the Cavs problems defending the P&R against athletic combinations, but he has a very high basketball IQ and is almost always in the right place at the right time, which is half the battle on defense. When he gets beaten, everyone notices it because it is usually him just being too slow or not athletic enough to stay his guy ... but you'll very rarely see him completely blow an assignment like James Harden or Rondo often do.

I wouldn't trade Love unless it was for a Jimmy Butler type (ie another star player) and I definitely wouldn't send him to Boston, of all places. To see a guy that versatile in a Brad Stephens offense that is built around his skillset? That would absolutely come back to bite us in the ass.

Plus, the guy is still young and he is on a relatively cheap contract given what just happened this off-season. He has many prime years still ahead of him and I don't think we've seen even close to his best in a Cavs uniform.

[D-Wait]

As long as Kev averages his 15 and 10 during the season and steps up a bit more in the Playoffs, he'll be fine...
Trading him would only make sense, if a team is willing to go all-in for him...
I read that he's in great shape after skiing in Utah this summer :lol So maybe he'll have a bounce back year...

[retaxis]

I think Dunleavy and Love is going to work great. 2 tall white guys shooting the ball is always good for Lebron. Then they bring in JR Smith and Lebrons old pal in Birdman and I think Cavs have a good chance of a repeat this year.

Finals I can just see Kevin vs Kevin. Both playing power forward but Love is straight up going to bully Durant on the boards and in the post.

[GimmeThat]

this is where Kyrie Irving's leaping ability comes to mind

I am confident about the fact that Kevin Love is equal to Lebron as a full court passer

[El Gato Negro]

Nope.

[bizil]

If u are capable of averaging 25 points and 13 boards in a season, u are an HOF caliber player in terms of production. And on top of it, one of the best shooting big men of all time. That's what K Love bring to the table.

But as a 3rd option, u have guys who could put up similar numbers AND provide better defense. So it comes down to would u have RATHER have an HOF caliber (in terms of potential numbers and production) big as your 3rd option eating up all that cap space. OR would u rather break those same dollars up to fill up holes.

As much heat as K Love catches, I can't recall ANY PF who could be a stretch 4 and put up 25 points and 13 boards. If a more pass first PG like CP3 was running the Cavs, Love's numbers would be more similar to his Minny numbers.

[retaxis]

If Klove wasn't camping at the 3pt line most of the game, He would have a lot more rebounds. Klove is still the best rebounder in the game because he can do the dive rebound as well as low post rebound. TT on the other hand can only do the dive rebound.

[Human Error]

I think they should. Love didn't really do much in the playoffs, and the Cavaliers started to turn things around when Love didn't play in Finals. If it's Love for Jae Crowder, Avery Bradley and a pick, you should do it. Love's game on the defensive end is too flawed to be counted upon with the game on the line.

[Ben Simmons]

Depends on the offer. If you find something good, you trade him without question, since Lebron needs to be the four these days anyways.

[egokiller]

Whether or not the Cavs should trade Love is not the question. The real question is GSW just picked up KD, so what moves does Cleveland need to make to be able to contend with them in the years finals.

[FatComputerNerd]

No.

[lilteapot]

Whether or not the Cavs should trade Love is not the question. The real question is GSW just picked up KD, so what moves does Cleveland need to make to be able to contend with them in the years finals.

Cleveland is good enough to beat the Warriors with KD.

[snipes12]

No .. It will come a time he will be important in the finals

[RedBlackAttack]

I think they should. Love didn't really do much in the playoffs, and the Cavaliers started to turn things around when Love didn't play in Finals. If it's Love for Jae Crowder, Avery Bradley and a pick, you should do it. Love's game on the defensive end is too flawed to be counted upon with the game on the line.
That's just not true. He was shooting something like 45% from three coming into The Finals. He was a big reason the Cavs were breaking records for three-pointers in the first three rounds. The Warriors are not a good matchup for him. That doesn't mean you trade him for a handful of role players.

Read my post above. What he does can't be replicated and, take Love away, suddenly the floor isn't as open for Kyrie and LeBron, and we aren't killing teams on the boards.

He's important, whether it is always obvious or not.