The Cleveland Cavaliers have a really good big in Kevin Love as their primary scoring option this year, and he’s more than okay with being the offensive focal point.
The last few years the Cleveland Cavaliers have had seasons with both Kyrie Irving and LeBron James (two seasons ago) driving the ship and then last year had James without Irving, and Kevin Love was the number two man.
Now with James on the Los Angeles Lakers, it’s up to Love to step in a first option and produce. Based on Love’s temperament thus far, he’s more than okay with that responsibility. On Monday, Love was interviewed by Bill Reiter of CBS Sports on “Reiter’s Block,” and Reiter noted that Cleveland is 35-7 when Love scores 25 or more points.
Love had this to say in regards to stepping back into the lead man role like he was with the Minnesota Timberwolves (h/t CBS Sports’ Colin Ward-Henninger).
"“It’s not like I forgot how to play basketball. I can score the ball at a high clip,” Love said. “But I’m gonna do whatever’s asked of me out there. I don’t expect to be top-five in scoring like I was, or even top-five in rebounding like I was. I’m looking to make the right play — I’m not setting those as goals, stats.“The only thing I really care about after sacrificing so much is the win column. Will there be times when I need to put up 25 or 30 points? Sure. Will there be times when I need to clean up the glass at a very high rate in certain games? Of course. But I’m gonna be looking a lot more to facilitate like I did in Minnesota.”"
He’s not going to be the 2013-14 Minnesota Love every night.
As Ward-Henninger added, “he averaged a robust 26.1 points and 12.5 rebounds while making the All-NBA second team.”
Those are not numbers Love is going to feasibly average for an 82-game (or maybe close to that) sample size. Love is going to get more usage this year, there’s no doubt about that. He’s much more versatile offensively than the other Cleveland bigs such as Tristan Thompson, Larry Nance Jr., Sam Dekker and Ante Zizic.
Love is also much more of a proven commodity in the all-around scoring game than potentially the other high-usage players on the Cleveland Cavaliers. Those project to be wing Cedi Osman, two guard Rodney Hood and rookie point guard Collin Sexton.
Love is a career 37.0 percent three-point marksman on a 31.9 percent three-point rate and has a career 56.9 true shooting rate, per Basketball Reference. His body of work as a scorer speaks for itself.
Other Cleveland role players should have a bit of a usage uptick, but not a huge one even without James. George Hill could get more shots via pick-and-roll ball-handling/spot-up shots and Kyle Korver, as a masterful 43.1 percent three-point shooter, will be leaned on heavily at times for Cleveland’s bench.
Love will be leaned on to make plays as a screener more often this year in pick-and-rolls, he’ll be asked to bring the ball up the floor after rebounds in order to push the pace and make plays more often as a scorer and passer out of the mid and high-post.
Love has 2.6 career assists per 36 minutes and a career assist rate of 12.1 percent, per Basketball Reference, and both of those numbers should be exceeded this season. He’ll still be able to use his outlet passes, too at times.
Head coach Tyronn Lue and the Cleveland Cavaliers need their star big to get his, yes, and he’ll need to score about 21-22 points per game.
More importantly, though, they’ll need Love to use his presence to get other players such as Osman, Hood, J.R. Smith, Hill, Korver, David Nwaba and Sexton open shots after opposing double-teams. Without James, Love will likely draw much more defensive attention.
However, that attention drawn can also allow Love to be utilized as a decoy, too. This kind of screening action from constant motion with Korver is always there in spurts, even without James’ presence. Love can do this for Nwaba and Hood for them to take the ball and drive it after getting a head of steam as well (video courtesy of Tom West).
No, Love hasn’t forgotten how to play basketball. He has 18.3 points and 11.3 rebounds per game in ten NBA seasons, and has a career PER of 21.9, per Basketball Reference.
The guy is pretty good. The key is if Love can stay healthy, which has been an issue throughout his NBA career, as we’ve demonstrated often here at KJG.
In terms of mindset, Love is just fine being “the” guy for Lue. He just needs to stay on the floor to open things up for his teammates.