To answer a question many of you had and many of you didn’t: No, the Cleveland Cavaliers don’t currently have a desire to deal Kevin Love in the aftermath of the Kyrie Irving trade.
From ESPN.com’s Zach Lowe:
The Cavs have contemplated trading Love off and on almost since that series, though they have no plans to do so right now, sources say. (Love does not have much standalone trade value.) They nearly flipped him for Paul George in a three-team trade in late June. It sometimes seems remarkable Love has survived this long in Cleveland, and that he outlasted Irving. Love sulked during much of the 2015-16 season. He absorbed LeBron’s passive-aggressive tweets, the dirty looks after botched rotations on defense. It would not have been surprising had the Cavs lost him sometime in the winter of 2016.
Speculation will no doubt continue to swirl. Plenty of folks will come up with monster blockbusters involving Love that add another wing to Cleveland’s roster. Some will assemble hypothetical proposals using Love and the 2018 Brooklyn Nets pick as bait for Anthony Davis. Love-for-DeMarcus Cousins swaps will probably be proposed regularly as the season wears on.
But the Cavaliers are unlikely to do anything drastic with Love or the rest of their roster. They don’t have an ironclad commitment from LeBron James beyond next season, and Love instantly becomes a value means of restocking the draft-pick cupboard should the four-time MVP bolt Cleveland a second time.
Plus, let’s not forget the Cavaliers don’t know what to expect from Isaiah Thomas, and they’re not going to cut the cord on next year’s hopes with LeBron in town. Love is crucial to toeing two different timelines. And as Tyronn Lue told Lowe, the Cavaliers are already figuring out ways to increase his involvement in the offense. To see them trade him now, when they need him to be James’ second-in-command through the start of the season, and perhaps longer, would be a flooring shock.
