Kevin Love expressed his desire to stay in Cleveland during his exit interview with the team following the NBA Finals, Jeff Zillgitt of USA Today reports. The power forward also reiterated his desire to stay once the news of LeBron James leaving town broke — during both interactions, he discussed his interest in a long-term deal.
Love inked a four-year extension with the Cavaliers worth an additional $120MM. As part of the arrangement, the big man declined his player option for the 2019/20 season, which is the first season the new pact will kick in.
Here some notes and reactions on the deal signed by Cleveland’s newest face of the franchise:
- The Love signing suggests that the Cavaliers have no interest in a full teardown, Jeremy Woo of Sports Illustrated writes. Outside of rookie deals, Love is the only guaranteed contract on the books past the 2019/20 campaign.
- Cleveland is reportedly interested in giving both Larry Nance Jr. and Rodney Hood new deals, Woo adds. Nance has one season at roughly $2.27MM left on his current deal. Hood is a restricted free agent, though he hasn’t had much interest this offseason after a shaky start to his Cavs career.
- The belief around the league was that the Cavaliers were going to move their high-priced veterans, but it became clear early on that the franchise wasn’t going to find takers for many of its players, sources tell Steve Kyler of Basketball Insiders. The scribe adds that Cleveland remains open to trades. However, after locking Love down long-term, there isn’t much urgency to move veterans.
Important to the rest of the team Kevin did this. James has always held hostage Cleveland and Miami I’ve the type of contracts and his unwillingness to discuss it. Made it difficult to bring in some stars due to not knowing whether James was going to stay or leave. For the rest of the team and organization, Kevin makes it clear what his intentions have been and are. This extension proves it. Now those players that do want to play along with Kevin can either stay or those on a different team know they have a rather large window to get to Cleveland. And the opposite is true as well. If there’s someone in the Cavs roster now that doesn’t like playing with Kevin, he can get the out via trade or via player option.
Dwayne Wade and IT are gone already! Love just got an award for going public about his panic disorder condition.
Yes. Awesome sauce. My wife got home from work just in time to see/hear KLove speak at the presser in Bruce’s show. She just kept saying “classy guy”. Loved the part where he signed his papers among the hard hats working in the Q.
Hope the best for K-Love a true nice guy, that is better than a lot of people gives him credit for, will be fun to see the team playing for him.
Losing on purpose is no fun, you wonder if you want that shot to go in or not. It’s unnatural, not what sports are about. I’m glad the Cavs are not going that route.
Lottery picks are teases more often then stars. I don’t get the attraction of the losing and dreaming. An allstar who wants to stay is the best.
I guess if the Star player wanted out of Cleveland or any other place for that matter, then I guess it’s a different story. But I agree with you. Why take a chance that a pick anywhere from 1-10 would get you a player that might be as good as the one you’re letting go? I don’t see the logic. Now if it were James at his age, I could see a team trading him. Love isn’t going to be 30 until this coming fall. By the time this deal is complete with Kevin, he’ll be the same age as James is now.
The idea of that, trading an established star for potential high end draft picks, is that Kevin MIGHT make them a 6th-8th seed that will likely get knocked out in the 1st round. Cavs can’t attract FA. Keep in mind that Gilbert has wanted Love for a long time and tried to trade for him weeks BEFORE LBJ announced he was coming back. Love let it be known publicly that Cleveland shouldn’t trade for him (for the #1 overall) because he would opt out and leave at the end of that season. Once LBJ abound he reached out to Love and convinced him to give the ok for the trade. Even after his first year, LBJ had to reach out to him once again to convince him to sign the extension. I’m glad he came and am glad he likes Cleveland but without LBJ he would’ve never thought seriously about coming to Cleveland as a free agent. The wisdom is, what kind of player would Love be if it take 3 years to get to the point where the young guys develop? Is he going to be able to lead this team at age 33?
So more than likely any chance of us getting all-star talents would be via drafts and trades.
I would not have been mad if they made a smart trade for Love that brought back picks that had them selecting in the top 12.
More important than fighting to contend, Gilbert has to show he can build and maintain a high level of efficiency organisation that has a cohesive plan, a steady and entered GM and a culture that will attract start caliber players. The league is showing us that you need two or three stars to compete. Best easy to do so is to build up assets and do a superior job at scouting and developing its own players. We simply can’t afford to miss out by drafting the Anthony Bennett’s, a guy who few had in their top 7 or drafting solid but unspectacular guys too early in the draft. Tristan and Dion Waiters for example. Cavs need to stock the organisation with top front office talent. We need to hit homeruns with our early round selections then find diamonds in the rough in the the later selections. Jerry West did an incredible job finding Klay and Draymond in the mid-first and 2nd round. We need rust kind of leadership intelligence because Cleveland won’t be a FA unless we become a champion contender that they can join.
Since Love and Nance are similar players (other than the 3’s Kevin can score), I’m unsure how they can build their with both long-term. Neither is a small forward and HS at a disadvantage playing the 5
Nance can jump out of the Gym, is not nearly the 3 shooter that love is nor is he the rebounder that Love is. Love can’t jump out of the gym like Nance but he can shoot from all over the court, pass as well as any big man and rebound. What ways do you see them as similar as I’m not seeing it Ohioplayers.
Other than the position they play, they’re completely different players so I don’t see an issue
They really couldn’t be more different.
I predict the Cavs still make the Finals. Maybe even win it.
My prediction is that Cleveland will land the top pick in next year’s draft. Not because they have the best odds, but because that’s how it seemingly works.
“Hmm, there’s a generational talent available in this upcoming draft, and he’s from Ohio. Let’s set up the Cavs, who have never won anything, to keep the kid close to home”
“LeBron left the Cavs for greener pastures, how dare him! I know, let’s set them up with the top pick in the draft”
“I’ll be damned, LeBron did it again! You know what would be a nice thing to do….”
Mark my words, the Cavs are going to try and keep a competitive team, they may even somehow make it to the playoffs as a 7 or 8 seed. They will definitely get bounced in the 1st round. They will collect their pick in the late teens/early twenties, no shot at a potential franchise player at the top of the draft. They will suffer in mediocrity for the next 10 years just like Philly did before The Process and like Atlanta did before their recent teardown.
rycm131 … I don’t see them making the finals but I think that the team as a whole will have more fun playing this year than they have in the past and just maybe gel into a very good “team”
Not sure how many teams would be willing to pay him 4yrs @ $100M considering all the nagging injuries he encounters as he gets older. May as well take the money while you can – and while someone is willing to offer it.