Kevin Love - Miami Ground Machine

[sailfish]

Right, because the nature of a trade for most teams is that the salaries have to roughly balance, and young players and draft picks won't do that. So we'll have to take back vet contracts to make the money work for the team acquiring him.

And there's the value for the other team - get rid of much less useful vet/vets, get back very useful Kevin Love in return, and toss in other assets to make it worthwhile for us. His value is likely to be higher after the first of the year, after teams have a chance to see how the league is shaking out, and can get a better sense of their own chances of being more competitive by trading for Love.

Right. One of the complexities for the Cavs is that contending teams are really the only ones likely to be interested in trading for Kevin Love and taking on his big contract. Since they are likely to be drafting in the bottom portion of the first round, that obviously lessens the value of the draft picks & makes it tougher to get good value in return. One of the few exceptions is Boston, which owns Memphis‘ first round pick, which is top 6 protected in 2020 and unprotected next year.

 

[cavsfever]

You just built your thesis around him not being an All Star level player.

He has been to the All Star Game five times.

You are illustrating why I just took a year off from posting in the Cavs section. In the 21st century, people have turned away from seeking information on the internet. Instead, they made up their minds on what they believe and search the internet for any scrap of proof that they have never been wrong.

It's sad and not worth much of my time or efforts. I've spent three months wondering why RCF still exists. Not even exaggerating.

Just remember that most of the sources you see posing Kevin Love trades do so because they want to see him in another market with a team closer to the playoffs, and the people covering the NBA want the best players concentrated on a handful of teams. The franchise's best interests have nothing to do with finding trade scenarios for Kevin Love to leave in exchange for ________.

What a ridiculously pompous and patronizing post. You seize on my use of the term "all-star" to ignore the point of my argument and go off on a lecture about your own superiority to other posters. To help you with basic logic -- the all-star teams consist of 24 players. Is Kevin Love one of the best 24 players in the NBA? No, he is not. Especially not as a two-way player. Ergo, he is not an all-star caliber player. From a trade value perspective the situation is even worse since not only is he not one of the best 24 players in the NBA currently, he is even lower down in the rankings for future performance over the length of his contract due to his age and injury history. The point of my post was that Kevin Love does not offer player value proportionate to his contract. That's not just my opinion, so far it's the opinion of 29 non-Cavaliers NBA general managers as well.

Now Kevin Love may not have much trade value on this contract, but he is still a good player (when he is on the court). He's certainly the best player on the current version of the Cleveland Cavaliers, and maybe the key to making this team watchable over the next few years. That has value, the Cavs have to spend their money on something after all. Personally I am not optimistic about trading him for anything close to his value on this team. If I turn out to be wrong at the trade deadline, so much the better.

As for your dumping on RCF, I would say that the homerism and condescension by prominent posters is just as much of an issue as the unwashed masses making arguments you don't agree with.

 

[cavsfever]

How can a big who can spread the floor and drain threes not be right for the modern NBA?

Because he's a poor defender. Bigs who could spread the floor and drain threes used to be very valuable because they were very rare. In the modern NBA they are not so rare. Hence they have to do other stuff well too -- they have to be either really great on offense or at least solid on defense

 

[InBoobieWeTrust]

Love is not a bad contract, flat out. Even right now at his absolute lowest value.

Let's just look at the money and age. He's turning 31 this season. He's only making 29 million dollars.

Age 31- 29 million
Age 32- 31 million
Age 33- 31 million
Age 34- 29 million -expiring contract.

In 2019, especially...that is simply not a bad contract in the slightest. It doesnt wildly increase with raises, and actually goes down at the tail end of the deal. For a guy who will be an elite rebounder, an elite shooter for his position, etc that is a good contract. He is a great locker room guy with championship pedigree. Other guys want to play with him. He is the rare all-star level guy who knows how to make the required sacrifice to be the #3 on a contender.

Given his injury history and the contract length, of course that does depress the value somewhat. Standing alone Love is worth a lottery pick and good young player. Given the other factors, that probably decreases to 1 of the two, or some combination of lesser picks, etc.

If it was a "bad contract", the Cavs would be a lot m,ore receptive to trading him in the current market for his services than they are. In reality, the Cavs greatly value Love, and there is no incentive to just get rid of him because of his contract. The Cavs would never pay someone to take his contract and they're not going to trade him without a good return.


John Wall is a bad contract. Kevin Love is not.

 

[The Human Q-Tip]

If it was a "bad contract", the Cavs would be a lot m,ore receptive to trading him in the current market for his services than they are. In reality, the Cavs greatly value Love, and there is no incentive to just get rid of him because of his contract. The Cavs would never pay someone to take his contract and they're not going to trade him without a good return.

I'm not so sure that necessarily follows. We are a rebuilding team that has been willing to take on bad contracts for draft picks. If he was a "bad" contract that other teams didn't want, we certainly wouldn't be willing to pay anything to get rid of him. That's the opposite of what we're doing strategically.

I think it's a case of him having true value to only a limited set of teams. He has true value to us because we have nobody else even close to being an All-Star, so he gives us a legitimate offensive threat that we would not otherwise have, plus some positive veteran stability and character. He'll also have value to playoff teams that lack shooting at the 4. But that's a comparatively small number. For a trade to work, Love has to me more valuable to one of those teams than he is to us, and that team must have tradeable assets worth more to that Cavs than Love's value as a player.

 

[cavsfever]

Love is not a bad contract, flat out. Even right now at his absolute lowest value.

Let's just look at the money and age. He's turning 31 this season. He's only making 29 million dollars.

Age 31- 29 million
Age 32- 31 million
Age 33- 31 million
Age 34- 29 million -expiring contract.

In 2019, especially...that is simply not a bad contract in the slightest. It doesnt wildly increase with raises, and actually goes down at the tail end of the deal. For a guy who will be an elite rebounder, an elite shooter for his position, etc that is a good contract. He is a great locker room guy with championship pedigree. Other guys want to play with him. He is the rare all-star level guy who knows how to make the required sacrifice to be the #3 on a contender.

Given his injury history and the contract length, of course that does depress the value somewhat. Standing alone Love is worth a lottery pick and good young player. Given the other factors, that probably decreases to 1 of the two, or some combination of lesser picks, etc.

If it was a "bad contract", the Cavs would be a lot m,ore receptive to trading him in the current market for his services than they are. In reality, the Cavs greatly value Love, and there is no incentive to just get rid of him because of his contract. The Cavs would never pay someone to take his contract and they're not going to trade him without a good return.


John Wall is a bad contract. Kevin Love is not.

John Wall is probably the worst contract in the NBA at this point, possibly one of the worst in NBA history, so that's a low bar.

I agree that Kevin Love isn't really a bad contract to us at this point, because we have no one else of his caliber to pay, don't have any key young players leaving their rookie contracts and approaching RFA territory, and don't believe we can attract top-level free agents. But from a trading perspective the question is whether other trading partners would view him as a bad contract. I believe most would for the reasons laid out by @The Human Q-Tip above. Even for playoff teams that lack shooting at the 4/5, a smaller group than it used to be, only a subset would value his contract because they would need to have $30 million worth of contracts to offload and want to tie up $30 million long-term for him, rather than targeting other people in the free agent market or reserving cap space for re-signing their own guys in coming years.

 

[Randolphkeys]

What a ridiculously pompous and patronizing post. You seize on my use of the term "all-star" to ignore the point of my argument and go off on a lecture about your own superiority to other posters. To help you with basic logic -- the all-star teams consist of 24 players. Is Kevin Love one of the best 24 players in the NBA? No, he is not. Especially not as a two-way player. Ergo, he is not an all-star caliber player. From a trade value perspective the situation is even worse since not only is he not one of the best 24 players in the NBA currently, he is even lower down in the rankings for future performance over the length of his contract due to his age and injury history. The point of my post was that Kevin Love does not offer player value proportionate to his contract. That's not just my opinion, so far it's the opinion of 29 non-Cavaliers NBA general managers as well.

Now Kevin Love may not have much trade value on this contract, but he is still a good player (when he is on the court). He's certainly the best player on the current version of the Cleveland Cavaliers, and maybe the key to making this team watchable over the next few years. That has value, the Cavs have to spend their money on something after all. Personally I am not optimistic about trading him for anything close to his value on this team. If I turn out to be wrong at the trade deadline, so much the better.

As for your dumping on RCF, I would say that the homerism and condescension by prominent posters is just as much of an issue as the unwashed masses making arguments you don't agree with.

Nobody asked or forced you to write that thesis. You selected All Star games as the criteria, which usually rewards players who are high scoring and high usage rather than players who compliment a high usage player. If you think back to the 2004 Olympics, the U.S. squad sent 12 traditional "All Star" type players and they picked up an embarrassing bronze. At that point, the value of players who provide more than that narrow measurement of basketball talent became higher priority.

Yet, Kevin Love made five All Star games being a player who would compliment team play over high usage. So you and Magic Johnson can go ahead and overvalue players who provide little more than ball dominance. I just doubt it will lead to winning basketball.

Turn this all into a personal attack if you must, but frankly you wrote a terrible argument which I had little difficulty blowing up in a sentence ten words in length. He is a five time All Star because your criteria inaccurate, faulty, and a poor reflection of the NBA. I cannot possibly think of a more obvious flagship to confirmation bias than to claim a guy who went to the All Star game 18 months ago - his last healthy season - isn't an All Star.

 

[dark2332]

Nobody asked or forced you to write that thesis. You selected All Star games as the criteria, which usually rewards players who are high scoring and high usage rather than players who compliment a high usage player. If you think back to the 2004 Olympics, the U.S. squad sent 12 traditional "All Star" type players and they picked up an embarrassing bronze. At that point, the value of players who provide more than that narrow measurement of basketball talent became higher priority.

Yet, Kevin Love made five All Star games being a player who would compliment team play over high usage. So you and Magic Johnson can go ahead and overvalue players who provide little more than ball dominance. I just doubt it will lead to winning basketball.

Turn this all into a personal attack if you must, but frankly you wrote a terrible argument which I had little difficulty blowing up in a sentence ten words in length. He is a five time All Star because your criteria inaccurate, faulty, and a poor reflection of the NBA. I cannot possibly think of a more obvious flagship to confirmation bias than to claim a guy who went to the All Star game 18 months ago - his last healthy season - isn't an All Star.

Even if he rested every 3rd game this season, he'd still be an All-Star in the East.

 

[InBoobieWeTrust]

I'm not so sure that necessarily follows. We are a rebuilding team that has been willing to take on bad contracts for draft picks. If he was a "bad" contract that other teams didn't want, we certainly wouldn't be willing to pay anything to get rid of him. That's the opposite of what we're doing strategically.

I think it's a case of him having true value to only a limited set of teams. He has true value to us because we have nobody else even close to being an All-Star, so he gives us a legitimate offensive threat that we would not otherwise have, plus some positive veteran stability and character. He'll also have value to playoff teams that lack shooting at the 4. But that's a comparatively small number. For a trade to work, Love has to me more valuable to one of those teams than he is to us, and that team must have tradeable assets worth more to that Cavs than Love's value as a player.

I still think it's this simple: a 30(soon to be 31) year oldguy who has before and can still very realistically make an all-star team, that is only making 30 million a year in 2019 with the salary cap what it is and talent costing what it does, particularly in the recent free agent periods.

I do agree his suitors may be limited right now, but that's just due to the current landscape of rosters in the league . I just overall don't agree that he's a bad contract. I would classify his contract as neutral at the absolute worst.

 

[The Human Q-Tip]

I still think it's this simple: a 30(soon to be 31) year oldguy who has before and can still very realistically make an all-star team, that is only making 30 million a year in 2019 with the salary cap what it is and talent costing what it does, particularly in the recent free agent periods.

I do agree his suitors may be limited right now, but that's just due to the current landscape of rosters in the league . I just overall don't agree that he's a bad contract. I would classify his contract as neutral at the absolute worst.

I agree. My point was the mere fact the Cavs haven't moved him doesn't prove he's not a bad contract, because we're not in the business of giving away assets to get rid of bad contracts.

 

[Cavsfan1985]

What a ridiculously pompous and patronizing post. You seize on my use of the term "all-star" to ignore the point of my argument and go off on a lecture about your own superiority to other posters. To help you with basic logic -- the all-star teams consist of 24 players. Is Kevin Love one of the best 24 players in the NBA? No, he is not. Especially not as a two-way player. Ergo, he is not an all-star caliber player. From a trade value perspective the situation is even worse since not only is he not one of the best 24 players in the NBA currently, he is even lower down in the rankings for future performance over the length of his contract due to his age and injury history. The point of my post was that Kevin Love does not offer player value proportionate to his contract. That's not just my opinion, so far it's the opinion of 29 non-Cavaliers NBA general managers as well.

Now Kevin Love may not have much trade value on this contract, but he is still a good player (when he is on the court). He's certainly the best player on the current version of the Cleveland Cavaliers, and maybe the key to making this team watchable over the next few years. That has value, the Cavs have to spend their money on something after all. Personally I am not optimistic about trading him for anything close to his value on this team. If I turn out to be wrong at the trade deadline, so much the better.

As for your dumping on RCF, I would say that the homerism and condescension by prominent posters is just as much of an issue as the unwashed masses making arguments you don't agree with.

I would put Kevin Love as a top 30 player, and if he is healthy, he is a top 3 PF/C in the East. You make it sound like he is some scrub player. Did you just see some of the contracts given out this summer? If Love has been a FA this summer what kind of deal do you think he would have got? I bet it would have been pretty close to what we are paying for him. I tend to think the Cavs could move Love if they wanted for some lower level assets in a heart beat if they wanted to. The thing is, why rush a trade to make a trade. IMO if Love gets off to a hot start, I could see a team in the playoff hunt go all in on Love.

If Love comes out and puts up 20+ points and 10+ rebounds to start the year he will be an All Star.

 

[dark2332]

I think it'd be an interesting exercise to just list the top 20 players in the Eastern Conference and see where Kevin Love falls.

I think the answer might surprise some people...

 

[Randolphkeys]

I think it'd be an interesting exercise to just list the top 20 players in the Eastern Conference and see where Kevin Love falls.

I think the answer might surprise some people...

Let's leave John Wall and Kevin Durant out because they aren't playing this year and who knows what they will look like after an Achilles tear.

Definites: Greek Freak, Joel Embiid, Bradley Beal, Kyrie Irving, Jimmy Butler, Kemba Walker, Tobias Harris, Blake Griffin, Victor Oladipo.

I'm having a hard time convincing myself Kevin Love doesn't deserve the ten spot. Ben Simmons still can't hit a three. Jayson Tatum has upside, but I'm talking about the top ten right now. Khris Middleton I guess?

 

[LeeBuckeye]

Interesting topic. I think this is a decent list of names going into the season that can be used to gauge Love’s ranking. IMO the guys I bolded are better or will be better going into the season. Not sure why the Pacers are hoarding all the centers as they drafted one again but Myles shooting and defense was elite last season. I can see him making a big jump and I love Sabonis as well. Tatum makes an all-star jump without Kyrie.

Kyle Lowry
Ben Simmons
Jayson Tatum
Jaylen Brown
Khris Middleton
Malcolm Brogdon
Al Horford
Trae Young
John Collins
Pascal Siakam
Myles Turner
Domantas Sabonis
Lauri Markkanen
Zach Lavine

 

[cavsfever]

Let's leave John Wall and Kevin Durant out because they aren't playing this year and who knows what they will look like after an Achilles tear.

Definites: Greek Freak, Joel Embiid, Bradley Beal, Kyrie Irving, Jimmy Butler, Kemba Walker, Tobias Harris, Blake Griffin, Victor Oladipo.

I'm having a hard time convincing myself Kevin Love doesn't deserve the ten spot. Ben Simmons still can't hit a three. Jayson Tatum has upside, but I'm talking about the top ten right now. Khris Middleton I guess?

In addition to the nine you listed, I would put Khris Middleton above Love, along with Nikola Vucevic, Ben Simmons (yes he can't shoot but he is elite at everything else), Al Horford (defense), Pascal Siakam, Kyle Lowry. Those to me are pretty much definites, so you have 15 guys better than Love in the East.

Then there is a next group where it's arguable -- Love is better than some, worse than others, it depends on what you value and how well they play this year. Including Jayson Tatum, Myles Turner, Marc Gasol, Malcolm Brogdon, Josh Richardson, and I even think Otto Porter is going to have a breakout year this year. Also don't sleep on Goran Dragic if he gets healthy. Will be interesting to see if Trae Young takes a leap.

So I think of Love as maybe the 18th to 20th best player in the East. Better than Serge Ibaka but not by much (when you count defense).