Re: Kevin Love
I disagree. As I mentioned above, we still need to field a team after trading for Love. If we trade away literally every asset we have, we'll be worse off in the long run than we would have been had we just stayed the course with our current rebuild.
Love absolutely will leave in a few years if we trade for him and can't make strides toward competing. Trading everything away to get Love will leave us in a position where we can't compete.
It's not like we'd be giving up our entire team for Love. The difference here is that we still have a future superstar at PG on the team. Love is a stud and would be a perfect compliment to Kyrie's game on the offensive end. I'd love to keep Waiters in a trade, but if the difference in completing a deal for Love is the inclusion of Dion Waiters, then he's on the next flight out of Cleveland. Assume whatever you will about Dion's future in the league, but Love is only 24, a proven All-Star at a tougher position to fill, can put up 20 and 10 every night without really trying, and can stretch the floor. Are people forgetting that Love
AVERAGED 26 pts and 13 reb last season while shooting over 37% from the 3pt line?
Bottom line is, you win in the league with elite players. We've established this time and time again on this site. Could TT, Waiters, and our 1st round pick 2013 all become All-Stars? Sure, anything's possible. However, history shows that it's probably more likely that none of them become an All-Star level talent than having even just one of them get there. We know what Love is. He also can't become an unrestricted free agent until the summer of 2015, meaning that he'd be guaranteed to be in a Cavs uni through at least the 2014-15 season. If we can't fill in enough pieces in FA and with our remaining draft picks by that time, we'll be losing Kyrie too so it wouldn't really matter.
It's not likely to happen anyway, but you literally trade nearly anything you have aside from Kyrie if you can get Love. If it means AV, TT, Dion, and our 2013 unprotected 1st, I do that tomorrow. We'd have guys lining up to play with Kyrie and Love, who are two of the most unselfish and likable stars in the league.
Hell, if we wanted to we could make this trade and still make a run at Bynum in the offseason. Andre Iguodala has an ETO he can exercise in the offseason and would be an insanely good fit with Love and Irving. Mayo has a PO and is certain to opt out with the year he's currently having. DeMar Derozan is restricted and would be a nice fit. Tyreke Evans is an RFA and would be a good fit as a SG who can create for himself and others. He'd also allow Irving to play off the ball some. I don't know if SAC would really want to match an offer on him.
Look, I know that Cleveland will never be a top free agent destination, but there would be a ton of interest from FA's if we had Love and Irving. If Love does become available, you do whatever you can to get him short of trading Irving.
