Cleveland Cavaliers head coach Larry Drew knows how important Kevin Love is, and he emphasized that again today with the media.
We all know that Kevin Love has had a massive list of injuries in his career, and even more so since he’s been a member of the Cleveland Cavaliers. This season, Love has only played in four games, as we’ve mentioned countless times here at KJG, due to a reported toe injury. It appears that Love is almost back to playing for Cleveland this year, though, even if he probably wouldn’t be getting a full workload right away.
With Love nearing his return, head coach Larry Drew highlighted just how much Love’s presence would mean on the floor for Collin Sexton, the rest of the players on the roster and the coaching staff (per the Cleveland Cavaliers).
"Our guys will be absolutely ecstatic to have him back."
— Cleveland Cavaliers (@cavs) February 8, 2019
Coach Drew on @kevinlove's impending return: https://t.co/atX3JPdzQX#BeTheFight pic.twitter.com/60bOMHOSwa
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Drew would go on to say in his media availability that Love is a “game-time decision” against the Washington Wizards tonight, and if he can go in some capacity, that’d be outstanding for Cleveland’s psyche.
When Love has been healthy in his career, he’s been a very good player. He has career averages of 18.3 points on 56.8 percent true shooting, to go with 11.3 rebounds and 2.3 assists per game, per Basketball Reference.
Drew knows how much having Love as an inside-out threat would help Cleveland’s perimeter players, such as Sexton, Cedi Osman and Jordan Clarkson.
I would think that with Love’s shooting ability (37.0 percent from three-point range for his career), that’s greatly helped Larry Nance Jr. (in addition to Kyle Korver before he was reportedly traded earlier in the season to the Utah Jazz).
Nance is not exactly a sniper from three-point range, yet, but him shooting 33.3 percent (a career-high) in his first season really having a considerable number of attempts (1.0 per game, per Basketball Reference) is not awful for mainly an above-the-rim player. Love’s guidance can’t exactly hurt Nance and now the recently-acquired (via trade) Marquese Chriss, who is not a jump-shooting threat yet, but can develop more in the next few months around Love.
It’s nice to hear Love is almost back for the Cleveland Cavaliers, who have clearly missed his production.