Why Kevin Love should request a trade

Kevin Love is underappreciated by the Cleveland Cavaliers and should take his talents elsewhere.

He probably won’t do it but Kevin Love should request a trade from the Cleveland Cavaliers after the season.

To start, not only is the growing dysfunction in the locker room indicative of a level of strain that’s unhealthy for the organization, it’s unhealthy for Love himself.

The passive aggression here isn’t baffling but it’s notable. Isaiah Thomas (and Dwyane Wade) reportedly led the charge against Love in the team meeting where the credibility of his game-time illness was questioned. Saturday’s game against the Oklahoma City Thunder isn’t the first game this year where Love left early with an unspecified illness.

Love also left a game against the Atlanta Hawks on November 5th with an unspecified illness. Coincidentally, just like in the Thunder game, Love was getting killed defensively before his departure; that’s likely a coincidence that his teammates noticed too and why they questioned him.

Love throwing a towel on Jeff Green just shows that Green, too, may have questioned Love during the meeting. Or at least spoke up about him.

All this after a first year where his fit was so bad that according to former Cavs executive Raja Bell, the team was trying to trade him the whole season, just as they tried to trade him again in the offseason for Paul George or a high first-round draft pick (and possibly even before that).

Love is purposely placing himself in an environment where he’s unpopular within circles of the locker room, underutilized by the coaching staff and constantly blamed by media and teammates. It’s an environment that you can push through when the wins are adding up but that is easily flammable when the losses start piling up.

That’s not an environment he needs to be in longer than he can help it though. It’s not going to benefit him off-the-court and it’s not benefitting him on the court either.

Offensively, despite being a high-usage and highly effective player at the start of the season, he’s once again returned to being the Cleveland Cavaliers’ third-wheel while the Cavs’ primary ball-handlers in the Big Three (LeBron James and Isaiah Thomas), go to work.

Since Isaiah Thomas has returned from his hip injury (on January 2nd), Love has been averaging 11.9 points per game while shooting 9.2 field goals, 4.6 three-point attempts and 3.2 free-throw attempts per game. Love has been shooting just 40.6 percent from the field and 35.3 percent from three-point range in this time.

Prior to Thomas’ return, Love was averaging 20.2 points per game while shooting 13.9 field goals, 5.8 three-point attempts and 5.3 free-throw attempts per game. He was shooting 47.3 percent from the field and 40.9 percent from three-point range.

That’s the difference between being an All-Star and a low-level starter but it’s the same player. Thomas has truly just messed up Love’s flow. Love received less touches which presents him from having more touches on the block and in the first quarter (which is the period the Cavs usually use to establish Love), effecting his rhythm.

Love has already sacrificed what could have been a Hall of Fame career thanks to putting high-volume counting stats on the backburner in favor of championships. He’s sacrificed a positive spotlight and traded it in for a magnifying glass. Can this be what he really wants, especially when he’s not even getting the same touches he had when Kyrie Irving was in town.

Touches that still made him far too much of a one-dimensional offensive threat rather than utilize his offensive versatility.

Trading Thomas seems to be an easy solution for the Cavs to get back on track with Love but the solution isn’t that easy. The Cleveland Cavaliers do need a player who can be a perimeter playmaker outside of LeBron James and no matter what that player will take shots away from Love. However, the Cavs need a player who can happily sacrifice more than Thomas (who is in a contract year) is going to have in order to make Love feel like himself again.

Sacramento Kings point guard and Cavs trade target George Hill is one such player.

Film Room: What can George Hill bring to Cavs?

However, not only has Thomas’ name not come up in trade packages for Hill but a report from Joe Vardon of cleveland.com has put into question the possibility of the deal coming together.

Aside from Love’s offensive ability being compromised by the current construction of the roster and the social dynamic of a toxic locker room environment, is the idea that the main – if not only – reason Love hasn’t asked from a trade is because he’s getting a chance to compete for championships.

From Jason Lloyd of The Athletic:

"In Love’s mind, regardless of how bad it looks right now, he absolutely believes this Cavaliers team can still win another championship in June — and there aren’t many teams that can realistically think that way. That’s why he hasn’t and won’t go to management or ownership and ask to be traded between now and the Feb. 8 deadline, Love told The Athletic. He can opt out of his contract after next season, but for now, the man who is annually mentioned in trade rumors insists he doesn’t want to be traded."

Wanting to win championships is fine but it shouldn’t be what drives you to stay on a team unless that’s the primary source of what will make him happy on a team. For a guy whose already won a championship (though his averages in the 2016 NBA Finals weren’t glamorous) that’s interesting.

I understand Love’s rationale for sticking in Cleveland but it doesn’t seem like what’s best for him as a person or a player.

Related Story: How far apart are Cavs - Kings on George Hill trade

*All stats gathered from www.basketball-reference.com