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Kevin Love - Miami Ground Machine

Do Not Sell My Personal Information

Is Kevin Love a Hero for Saving a Dog?

  • Yes

    Votes: 28 48.3%
  • Too Right!

    Votes: 2 3.4%
  • Hotter than Jimmy G

    Votes: 15 25.9%
  • Jim Chones

    Votes: 13 22.4%

  • Total voters
    58
I think we will play to win but ultimately we are going to not be good enough to lose the pick we now owe to the Pelicans. If we are on the border, I could see us using some maneuvers to ensure we keep the pick as it's an important asset.

I think it helps us that the Pelicans now have our pick. They should be a team that will be wheeling and dealing. Really our 2020 pick has the most value to us. Its a weird asset because of the protections and this year is the year it either conveys as a first or two seconds. It could end up back to us in some sort of 3 way deal.
 
What do you think Love's value is right now?
Either positive or negative.
I'm guessing his value right now is neutral. He wouldn't bring back anything valuable in a trade. But I don't think he is negative value.

If Love plays 60-65 games this season and averages 20-10, I think he is extremely valuable to a contender.

I agree it's pretty neutral but he is undervalued more of circumstances around the league than what kind of player he is. He isn't a guy that can be added to just a single star to jump a team to the next level. Teams would rather wait and see how the dynamic of their team forms to add Love as a 3rd star. The jump a team can make with Love as a 3rd star is probably from an average playoff team to true contender. That's where is value is and where we will get the proper value back for him.

The shift from free agency this summer brought alot of newly formed teams. I think Love is a player a team rather bring in when they know their two star have establish a dynamic between each other. It's a star driven league that coaches can plan and design for a certain dynamic but it's ultimately on the star players to build on how they will play with each other.
 
Draymond Green - again, one year younger than Kevin Love - just signed his extension averaging $25 million through 2024, which is one year after Love's contract.


Draymond is a great defender, but he has certainly seen his offensive game aging poorly. We will see how things go now that he will be responsible for more on that end of the floor this season.
 
FWIW, here's a very recent article involving speculation about Love and his fit on the Blazers.


This is...not a good article or assessment of Love, and it's just a fan site, but I'm posting it to make two points:

(1) Despite the article's own (faulty) assessment of Love's production and injuries and "decline," the author still sees him as a valuable piece that could put the Blazers over. Maybe not over, i.e., a "guaranteed" championship, but highly competitive. Again, that's with his faults being considered. It's the Wild West now that Golden State is a wounded animal. Someone here called it an "arms race," which is perfect. His contract will not be an issue.

(2) I've seen some people here referring to what "teams" think of Love, or what the "league" thinks of Love, which is really a way of saying what the media and fans think of Love. But "teams" or the "league" aren't going to be trading for him...a specific team will. His fit on a specific team, like Portland, is what matters. That's it. The generalizations about the league's perceptions of Kevin Love don't matter.

Granted, there are only a handful of teams that would be potential good fits for Love (Portland, Pelicans, Lakers, Golden State, maybe Denver, Spurs, Pacers, Jazz, Heat, Mavericks), but unless we're talking about a Top 5 player, isn't that the way it usually is? And sure, most teams need to see how Love performs in the first half of the season.

(FWIW again, that article at least adds Nassir Little to the Whiteside expiring/cap relief, which moves the needle closer for me. I'd need picks and to see Little play. I'd consider Zach Collins in the mix, too. I tend to think Portland and Cleveland have already seriously talked about a possible trade deadline scenario, and that they did so before the Whiteside trade.)
 
If Kevin is playing really well at the deadline then there are teams in the hunt for the title this year that might look at him as the final piece. Even the teams with "no assets" have unprotected picks a few years down the road.

I'd have no problem taking multiple unprotected or very lightly protected picks as late as 2024-26. Those are assets, so even if we decide in a couple of years that we don't want to wait that long -- other teams would view those picks as assets (i'e teams entering complete rebuilding mode).

Here’s the thing. If Love’s playing well then the team is likely playing well. With Love being a perimeter oriented big man now, he’s going to have to rely on good perimeter play in order to have what most of us would consider a good year.

That being said, if Love’s having a good year and Garland and Sexton are playing well, I wouldn’t be shocked to see the FO going into acquisition mode to try and make the playoffs. I don’t think that’s necessarily the best idea, but I don’t know the philosophy of the organization and the front office.
 
People are overrating Love, there is a lot of homerism here.

In last year's playoffs, where Love didn't have Kyrie and the team desperately needed him to step up on offense and play a true all-star role, be the second best player on a championship team, he posted 14.9/10.2/1.6 stats on a quite inefficient 51% true shooting percentage (he shot below 40% from the floor and 34% from 3). Khris Middleton this year put up 16.9/6.2/4.4 on 56.7% true shooting (43.5% from 3 -- almost ten points higher than Love). He also did it on a much lower usage percentage. And of course Middleton is a significantly better, more versatile defender than Love.

As for Horford, he is a much better player in a complementary role than Love. People aren't really absorbing the point I made above about how Love is a high usage offensive player. If you are a high usage offensive player *and* a defensive liability then your offense should be fantastic if you want to be on a championship-level team. Love's offense is very good but not great. Horford is an excellent complementary player to put next to multiple high-level offensive stars because he will be a very good (plus) team defender while efficiently scoring double digits and spacing the floor well without needing the ball very much. It is true that he is older than Love but if he maintains his current level of play he's a more useful player on a contender.
 
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He played 22 games with us.

7 wins. 15 losses. ~31.8%

Only played the first four games (all losses) at the beginning of the season (and didn't suit up again until February 8th).

He sat for 60 games.

12 wins. 48 losses. ~20%

I recommend using this link for Kevin's stats.

Lots of stats to work with. He played 598 minutes with us out of 3955 total possible minutes (or 15% of the entire season). Despite playing so little, our offense was 5.5 points better (per 100 possessions) while he's on the court, while 1.2 points better on defense. We shot better, rebounded better, passed better, and took care of the ball better. It wasn't perfect, but he certainly had a positive effect on the game.

There is no doubt that Love elevates this team, because the rest of the team is pretty bad. Love is our best player right now by a mile. The question is whether he can provide $90 million worth of elevation over the next three years to a contending squad. He's not a good candidate for another rebuilding team because his age doesn't really fit the timeline for a rebuild and he's not an exciting enough player to put a lot of butts in the seats on his own.

Nobody is saying Love is bad, the question is how much trade value he has.
 
There is no doubt that Love elevates this team, because the rest of the team is pretty bad. Love is our best player right now by a mile. The question is whether he can provide $90 million worth of elevation over the next three years to a contending squad. He's not a good candidate for another rebuilding team because his age doesn't really fit the timeline for a rebuild and he's not an exciting enough player to put a lot of butts in the seats on his own.

Nobody is saying Love is bad, the question is how much trade value he has.
yeah his trade value is not good now , and can really only get better as his contract ages provided he ages well as a player. More beneficial to this roster would be getting a nice rookie scale pf back for Love while absorbing a bad contract instead of fishing for late firsts and maybe not getting any value depending on how the records fall.
I would play him a lot in December and January and hopefully his stats will be really good heading into the deadline where there is possibly a chance a return is worth pulling the trigger on.
I am not so sure anyone will be really looking at him as an option though without dumping a bad deal.
 
There is no doubt that Love elevates this team, because the rest of the team is pretty bad. Love is our best player right now by a mile. The question is whether he can provide $90 million worth of elevation over the next three years to a contending squad. He's not a good candidate for another rebuilding team because his age doesn't really fit the timeline for a rebuild and he's not an exciting enough player to put a lot of butts in the seats on his own.

Nobody is saying Love is bad, the question is how much trade value he has.

Your last post before this one didn't bring much to the table aside from dying on the hill of your choosing. It compares two other players who are around the same expectation level of production and cherry picks a range of games. Is he going to be as good or better than Middleton or Horford? Who knows, but the track record shows they are on the same tier in pay and production. So many factors go into play, like quality of the other four guys on the floor... but I expect them to be in the same tier of lower level / cusp Eastern Conference All Star.

But here we see some really good ideas to base a conversation of the future. I'm happy to see some recognition that Love is the best player on the roster by a mile. I feel like that has gotten lost in a lot of focus on other secondary trivialities.

The Cavaliers believed one year ago that he has a skillset that does benefit a young roster in the next three years, four at the time of the signing. When they drafted Sexton, they saw an opportunity to take playmaking pressure off a rookie guard because Love is among the better big man passers, and he helps clear the lane being a strong outside shooter as well. With a young perimeter group to develop, the hope would be akin to Paul Millsap as the veteran All Star on the court with the young Denver players on rookie contracts. It's really about the type of game he can provide at power forward, rather than just a guy who scores.

I see that the biggest issue most people have is the price tag. I do not think Love gave the Cavs any form of "hometown discount." He asked for full price in order to stay through the rebuild. If that were truly a hindrance to the franchise, the team would not have traded for Brandon Knight, John Henson, and a number of other bad contracts. They wanted a core of rookie scale contract players with potential and one guy who knows how to play right now... and it works in this budget.

Rather than taking the stance that is a hindrance on the Cavs rebuild, I see that as an opportunity. Other teams would have been happy to pay him the exact same contract and the Cavs would have received zero compensation. Look at what the Warriors just did to get some compensation out of Durant leaving for Brooklyn: They are overpaying for Russell and sent out first round payolla to get something out of Durant's decision. Love allows the Cavs to get a player who takes pressure off a lot of rookie scale players.

So thanks for moving toward a more reasonable stance. Life has a lot of grey area and there is a lot of grey area in the Kevin Love contract.
 
Locked on Cavs podcast had a guy from Portland who covers the trailblazers on, and he talked some about how Lamarcus helped Dame get to where he is. I think Collin recognizes that, and hopefully Garland will too. Having a great offensive big makes a guard's job so much easier and we saw what Love's Gravity did for Collin as compared to Zizic or Tristan or even Larry. It just makes the offense work so much better. Then of course the spacing he supplies by his shooting ability is obvious.

Love's contract is immaterial to me. His skillset is quite relevant and absolutely will help open up the game for our guards, and wings as well.
 
Draymond Green - again, one year younger than Kevin Love - just signed his extension averaging $25 million through 2024, which is one year after Love's contract.


Draymond is a great defender, but he has certainly seen his offensive game aging poorly. We will see how things go now that he will be responsible for more on that end of the floor this season.

Draymond's three point shooting percentage has fallen off sharply over the last couple of years but he is still a very good offensive player. In the last playoffs he put up 13.3/10.1/8.5 (!) on a 56.1% true shooting percentage, so good efficiency. His ability to play point forward and essentially run the offense through his passing is really superb and special for a front court player -- he had an assist percentage of over 30% in the last playoffs! This is boosted by the chemistry he has with the Golden State offense but it's special any way you look at it. Golden State had a much better offense with him on the floor. When you combine that with his DPOY quality defense he is extremely valuable -- GS was a net +15.4 in the playoffs with him on court last year. In contrast Kevin Love was basically a wash in net rating during our last playoffs -- he added a little on offense, subtracted a little more on defense.
 
Draymond's three point shooting percentage has fallen off sharply over the last couple of years but he is still a very good offensive player. In the last playoffs he put up 13.3/10.1/8.5 (!) on a 56.1% true shooting percentage, so good efficiency. His ability to play point forward and essentially run the offense through his passing is really superb and special for a front court player -- he had an assist percentage of over 30% in the last playoffs! This is boosted by the chemistry he has with the Golden State offense but it's special any way you look at it. Golden State had a much better offense with him on the floor. When you combine that with his DPOY quality defense he is extremely valuable -- GS was a net +15.4 in the playoffs with him on court last year. In contrast Kevin Love was basically a wash in net rating during our last playoffs -- he added a little on offense, subtracted a little more on defense.

Here again, two very specific small incongruent sample sizes are being used to dictate what will happen in the future. I for one am not claiming to predict the future. I will say that the role Kevin Love is expected to play for the Cavaliers in 2019 is completely different than his role as Robin to LeBron's Batman on a very flawed 2017/2018 roster.

I would also say that Draymond finds himself in a very different situation this season, and it's one that isn't easy to predict at all. Steve Kerr had a beautifully matched lineup for the Durant Era because Draymond could be their defensive MVP and a fourth or fifth option as a scorer. Now Durant is gone, Klay will be out until at least February, and they brought in a pick and roll point guard. The Warriors offense is going to be very different, and Draymond's role in that offense is about to be very different.
 
They are not incongruent sample sizes and they are not small -- both samples are over 20 games, and I consistently pick the playoffs because this is most revealing as to the value of top players. Picking the most recent playoff runs is not cherry-picking it's a consistent metric.

It will indeed be interesting to see how Draymond adapts this year. He is extremely skilled but as you say this will be a very different environment, especially before Klay comes back. We will see how much of his value had to do with the way he slotted in with the Splash Brothers. I suspect he will still play a critical role and have a high plus-minus but we'll see.

As a reminder, we are not discussing whether KLove is a good player or a good player to have on our team -- I agree he is both, since we are loaded with rookies and will not go far in the playoffs, we need his veteran leadership, and we lack strength in areas that he is skilled. It is about his trade value to a contender, using other top players as a benchmark. I have consistently tried to use hard data to illustrate my view that he is a rung below other top players in terms of his value on a high-level contender. Anyway, I have said my piece.
 
Given the number of two star teams in the hunt this year, I think Love as a booster Rocket at the deadline is valuable. There will be others as well depending on injuries.. There will also be limited buyers, given that we will want decent picks in return..
 

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