Cavs: Why Kevin Love will likely be traded in the offseason

When the Cleveland Cavaliers extended Kevin Love last summer, it appeared he would be here long-term, but things have changed and when you read the tea leaves, there is a strong chance he’ll be traded this summer.

When the Cleveland Cavaliers reportedly signed Kevin Love to a four-year, over $120 million contract extension (per Spotrac) this summer it looked like he was going to be around for a while, but as this season has gone on, the direction of the franchise has completely changed.

The Cavs being a competitive team that was reportedly going to compete for the postseason was probably never realistic, but those chances ended completely when Love went out due to a toe surgery that would sideline him for 50 games, per NBA.com. The team Love had to start the season with has drastically changed since the time of that surgery, as Cleveland has traded key veterans.

George Hill, Kyle Korver, and Rodney Hood (who’ve since been traded) were all on the team with Love to open the season, and now, the Cleveland Cavaliers have fully committed to a complete rebuild and are giving a lot of minutes to young guys who are still developing their games.

They are a team that is undergoing a start-from-scratch rebuild, and while Love signing a contract extension was very honorable and him as the final member of the last big three sticking around sounded great, keeping Love doesn’t seem realistic.

This is already a team that is in asset-collection mode and that will continue into the offseason with the likes of Love, Brandon Knight and potentially Jordan Clarkson having a good chance of being traded.

Both Knight‘s and Clarkson‘s contracts will be expiring after the 2019-20 season, per Spotrac.

There seems to be a good chance that Cleveland will have a new head coach next year as well, and one that is a first-time coach, as recently reported by Cleveland.com’s Chris Fedor.

It’s unclear how Love would fit into that youth development approach.

Whenever you’re a franchise that is in asset-collection mode and in the mode of developing young guys, you’re a team that will have growing pains and lose a fair share of games.

That is a huge reason the Cleveland Cavaliers will look for a young, first-time head coach that will grow with the team, and one that is really a teacher of the game and can develop all the young guys gradually, which is an approach that could clash with Love eating up big minutes.

When the Cavs have already traded the majority of the older veteran guys, such as Korver and Hill, it makes no sense to keep Love on a team that will be playing very young players considerable minutes, and the fact that they’re focused on rebuilding/developing comes with growing pains and losses.