Cleveland Cavaliers star Kevin Love was rated as the third-best power forward in the NBA by Bleacher Report going into the 2018-19 NBA season, and that seems reasonable.
In Bleacher Report’s player rankings compiled by B/R’s Adam Fromal and Dan Favale, which were broken down by individual position groups (which are based on players being available for the whole upcoming season), Cleveland Cavaliers big Kevin Love was rated as the third-best power forward. That seems about right, given Love’s body of work.
Love is coming off a season in which he averaged 17.6 points and 9.3 rebounds in 28.0 minutes per game. Over his last four seasons alongside LeBron James in Cleveland, Love has posted 17.1 points, 10.0 rebounds and 2.1 assists in 31.3 minutes per game, per Basketball Reference.
Even though the Cavs’ big man had to sacrifice usage playing with LeBron (and with Kyrie Irving for three years), he’s been efficient most of the time and as you probably know by now, Love will likely put up bigger numbers this year as the first option offensively.
Love is one of the best inside-out threats in the league, with good skill with both hands in the low post to punish defenders going toward the rim and away from it, and he’s one of the best shooters in the league off the catch.
Among those Love ranked over were Tobias Harris, Blake Griffin, rookie Jayson Tatum (who could be an All-Star soon), and LaMarcus Aldridge. For now, it seems fair for Love to be ranked over those players, given his ability to adjust to James’ ball-dominant style and still put up All-Star numbers in the last two seasons.
To reiterate, B/R’s lists only includes players that will be available for the totality of the regular season. New York Knicks star 4 Kristaps Porzingis is a notable name that was left off, given he is still recovering from an ACL injury. That being said, I’m not sure Porzingis is better than Love at this very moment.
Will he be in two years? I believe so.
Considering Porzingis has an advanced handle for a player his size, and his 2.0 career blocks per game (per Basketball Reference) is impressive, but he needs to get better in the low post, and doesn’t have Love’s passing vision nor rebounding ability.
Although he’s usually played in lineups with another big on the floor, Porzingis should have a higher career rebounding rate than 12.5 percent, and his career assist rate of 7.2 is not near Love’s of 12.1 percent (all per Basketball Reference).
The only 4’s ranked ahead of Love were Draymond Green and Giannis Antetokounmpo, and there’s no way Love is more valuable or better than those players. Green is one of the best all-around defenders in the league with his switchability, is a great rebounder on both ends and has elite passing ability.
Antetokounmpo is a bonafide MVP candidate, and is among the best two-way players in the league, period. Last year, he shelled out 26.9 points, 10.0 rebounds, 4.8 assists, 1.5 steals and 1.4 blocks per game, per NBA.com.
Clearly, even though Love is a far superior shooter, he does not affect the game like the two-way players Green and Antetokounmpo are, but those two players are a pretty high standard.
With how consistent Love is for long stretches, him being the third-best power forward in the league (at least for now), seems about right. We’ll see if he can carry the Cleveland Cavaliers in the near future and help in developing young pieces such as Larry Nance Jr. and Cedi Osman.