Tristan Thompson, Kevin Love moving up in Cavs’ ranks is silver lining

The Cleveland Cavaliers are amid a rough stretch as of late, but seeing Tristan Thompson and Kevin Love recently move up in key statistical categories in the team’s history is a silver lining.

It’s clear as the day that the Cleveland Cavaliers are amid a rough stretch lately, as they’ve lost five straight games and are now 12-32 in the 2019-20 season.

A silver lining in this rough stretch of games, though, outside of say Darius Garland coming on as a perimeter and playmaker, along with Cedi Osman being on a hot streak, is Tristan Thompson and Kevin Love moving up in key statistical statistical categories in the Cavs’ history.

As our own Corey Casey detailed, and even with it being a good road trip overall for Darius Garland recently, Garland, and really most of the Cavs outside of Thompson, it was hard to come up with positives in the Cavs’ awful 106-86 loss on MLK Day to the New York Knicks.

However, again, it was at least nice to see Thompson have a career-high 22 rebounds against the Knicks, according to Cavs Official Notes.

Thompson, who is averaging career-highs points (12.6), rebounds (10.6) and assists per game (2.1), as shown by Basketball Reference, plays with such incredible effort whenever he’s out there for the Cavaliers and has really leaned into being the team’s primary leader, too.

TT, in addition, moved up to third place all-time in total rebounds in franchise history on Friday in a narrow road loss at the Memphis Grizzlies, and for reference, is now only behind Zydrunas Ilgauskas and LeBron James, as was noted by Cavs.com’s Joe Gabriele.

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Thompson’s ability to grab contested offensive rebounds, still often around two, three and even sometimes four other opposing players has really been something I’ve loved to watch for so many years.

He’s still one of the league’s best offensive rebounders, too, and it’s not like he doesn’t clear the defensive glass more often than not when that’s called for.

With what he’s continued to show on both ends of the glass throughout this season, along with him being a solid interior defender that can switch out on occasion and with TT being a terrific screener, one would think, also factoring in him being an expiring contract piece, that contenders would be interested in Thompson.

Nonetheless, with what TT brings seemingly every night for the Cleveland Cavaliers, I wouldn’t blame Cleveland for wanting to retain him through the February 6 trade deadline if they feel they could negotiate a somewhat team-friendly contract after the season with him. He’s due to make $18.5 million this season.

The aforementioned Casey believes the Cavs should definitely keep Thompson if he expresses long-term interest, but again, we’ll see eventually there.

Anyway, Kevin Love passing Kyrie Irving for third all-time in three-pointers made in Cavs’ history adds to that silver lining with TT moving on up in the rebounding department as of late in this rough patch as well.

Not surprisingly, given the workload he’s had and the miles he’s had in his Cavs’ career dating two stints, LeBron is the all-time leader in that category, and Mark Price, one of Cleveland’s best guards in their history, and probably the second-best behind Irving, is second.

Anyhow, Love, who is still averaging a solid 17.3 points and 2.4 made field goals per game, to go with 10.1 rebounds per game in 2019-20, is a player that sacrificed a lot of usage in his time here with Cleveland, dating back to the days with LeBron and even more so with Irving.

Love’s perimeter shooting ability has only been utilized even more, on a positive note, though, and it was nice to see Love’s good buddy, TT, praise Love for his Cavs’ contributions postgame. Thompson even alluded to how he believes Love’s jersey will be retired by the Wine and Gold some day, too, per Basketball Insiders’ Spencer Davies.

Even with Love wanting to be traded seemingly by the deadline, as Cleveland.com’s Chris Fedor recently expressed in a mailbag set of responses, and with what’s unfortunately transpired this season with Love showing his displeasure with the Cavaliers, I’ll always be more than grateful for what he provided to the Wine and Gold since being traded here in the summer of 2014 by the Minnesota Timberwolves. The Philadelphia 76ers were included in that deal as well, by the way.

Will Love’s number 0 be retired by the Cleveland Cavaliers?

It would seem to be a good possibility.

Love made two All-Star teams with Cleveland, and just like Thompson, was a key part of the Cavs’ only championship team in 2016 where Cleveland came back from a 3-1 deficit to beat the regular season record-setting 73-9 Golden State Warriors.

Moreover, even with this rebuilding squad in a tough place right now and with there being plenty of growing pains for pieces such as Darius Garland and Collin Sexton, it’s been cool to see Love and TT, who paid homage in postgame to Cavs legend Brad Daugherty after passing him, climb up relevant ranks in Cavaliers’ history.

TT, who is in Year 9 after being drafted here in 2011, for the record, should certainly have his number 13 retired.