Cleveland Cavaliers: Kevin Love deserved the anti-tanking approach
By Dan Gilinsky
The Cleveland Cavaliers have made it their mission to not tank this season, and that’s what made Kevin Lov sign his contract extension in July.
The Cleveland Cavaliers are going to do the best they can to be a respectable ball club in 2018-19. For that, hats off to them. Plus, with Kevin Love on the roster, it’s more of a possibility.
Tanking is a fair approach to building a team, and heck, it netted the Cavaliers three first overall picks following LeBron James‘ first departure from The Land.
This time around, though, as we’ve said countless times here at KJG, the Cavs have a better roster post-James. That makes it more difficult to simply just hit the rebuild button.
The team has one of the best bigs in the league in Kevin Love, and they have some nice young perimeter players around him in Rodney Hood, Cedi Osman and Collin Sexton, to name a few. There’s also veteran leadership with George Hill, Kyle Korver, J.R. Smith, Tristan Thompson and Channing Frye.
This team is not going into a rebuild; their goal is to make the postseason, according to head coach Tyronn Lue and general manager Koby Altman.
Before the Cavaliers played the Boston Celtics Tuesday night in their first preseason game, Love was asked about his mindset going into the year without James, and he made it clear in a meeting with Altman that he wasn’t going to be part of a reset.
This is what he told Chris Mannix of Yahoo! Sports in shootaround.
"“We went over every scenario,” Love said. “The first was if ‘Bron came back and we compete for a championship. Then it was trying to build with the guys we have.”"
Mannix would then add that Love doubled down on him sticking around.
"“In the meeting, Love made it clear: regardless of what happens with James, Cleveland is where he wants to be.”"
From there, Mannix reiterated how Cleveland and Love were in lock step with their approach.
"“The Cavs had no intention of tanking, Altman said. And they didn’t want to trade Love, either. James was gone, but the culture that was built over four straight Finals trips remained. The veterans who were on the roster would stay there, and the influx of young players would contribute to a more up-tempo style of play.”"
Cleveland and Love have a come a long way, and with him being involved in trade rumors essentially every year he’s been a Cavalier, this was something he deserved. Love has stuck it out, and the Cavs have pieces to build themselves back up in a weaker Eastern Conference.
Cleveland is not going to contend for the East, but if Love can stay relatively healthy throughout the year, they should be able to grind out wins and steal some games.
With their new faster-paced offense focused on man and ball movement instead of James high pick-and-rolls and simple isolation kick-outs, it will allow Love to maximize his full offensive repertoire. We saw a preview of that Tuesday night, in which he dominated the first half with 17 points in 17 minutes.
With him signing his four year, $120 million contract extension, I can’t blame the guy for not wanting to tank. Lue, Sexton, Osman and the other key pieces probably would not have loved that approach, either.