WEDNESDAY, 12:56pm: The Cavs remain confident of retaining Love and are willing to offer the max, reports Jason Lloyd of the Akron Beacon Journal.
TUESDAY, 10:13pm: Love’s representatives and the Lakers have spoken, and a meeting is planned for this week, reports Chris Broussard of ESPN (Twitter link).
SUNDAY, 9:51am: Kevin Love has indicated to the Cavs recently that he plans to return, Sam Amico of Fox Sports Ohio tweets. Love officially opted out of his contract on Thursday.
Cleveland is prioritizing signing Love in free agency, according to Dave McMenamin of ESPN.com (Twitter link). “We’re very much intending to pursue him the instant that we’re able to,” GM David Griffin said. Griffin said last week that he was expecting Love to opt out but re-sign with the club in July.
LeBron James expressed his desire for the team to re-sign Love as well as Tristan Thompson, Iman Shumpert and J.R. Smith, but he won’t actively recruit any of them. Love will have no shortage of suitors this offseason as the Rockets, Blazers, Lakers, Suns and Celtics have all expressed interest in the power forward.
I’ll believe it when I see it. In January he wasn’t opting out. In March he wasn’t opting out… Here in June he’s opted out. When the Lakers / Blazers / Celtics… etc etc all give him calls on July 1 we’ll here he’s doing “due diligence”… a week later he’ll be leaving the Cavs. Frustratingly it will probably help them too. Can’t max out Love, max out Thompson, pay Mozgov 5 mill, pay Varejao 10 mill.. and somehow expect a balanced, title contending roster.
I’m going to chalk this up to him wanting to be “wooed” for the first time in his career. He’s never been thru the FA process and maybe he wants to show teams like the Lakers a bit of respect. I would be a little surprised if he doesn’t sign with the Cavs…..but we’ll see.