Cavs: Revisiting stats predictions for Cedi Osman, Kevin Love and Tristan Thompson

Revisiting my 2019-20 statistics predictions for Love

My predictions: 17.2 PPG on 58.8 percent true shooting, 10.1 RPG, 2.0 APG, 27.4 MPG and 61 games active

Love’s 2019-20 stats thus far: 17.6 PPG on 59.9 percent true shooting, 9.8 RPG, 3.2 APG, 31.8 MPG and 56 games active

At this point, I would objectively say I was mostly in the right ball park when it comes to Love, but us Cavs fans are well-aware of what that has meant when he’s been able to go for a good while. I was off the mark when it comes to minutes workload and the playmaking element, though.

Where I’ve been off the mark: Playmaking volume/minutes workload

It wasn’t a secret that the Cavaliers were going to utilize Love as a facilitator for others, too, and with his playmaking feel for a big and ability to make touchdown-like outlet passes to the likes of Sexton and Osman, I expected a few helpers per game.

3.2 assists per outing has been more than I would’ve expected, however, and while that’s been fairly impressive for Love, it’s not exactly something I want to see carry forward. Cleveland needs youngsters such as Garland, Sexton and Kevin Porter Jr. to be initiating offense more often in coming years, whether or not Love is around, for the overall flow of the offense starting with perimeter pieces.

I was also somewhat off the mark when it relates to minutes workload; I thought going into the year that we’d see Love playing less to preserve him, and I also thought he’d sit more as the season progressed, and not mostly just second games of back-to-backs.

Overall, though, I’d say I was pretty on it when it comes to my 2019-20 statistics predictions for Love.

Where I’ve hit: Scoring/true shooting/rebounding

Love’s 17.6 points per outing on 59.9 percent true shooting, to go with his 9.8 rebounds on average were right about in the ballpark I predicted them to be in before the season, of which you can view above.

Even since Drummond has been a Cav near the 2020 deadline, Love’s defensive rebounding ability is still going to be among the league’s best. For his career, Love’s had a defensive rebounding rate of 29.6 percent, and this season, it’s been 31.1 percent, which has placed eighth among qualified players, according to Basketball Reference.

Needless to say, me being nearly right in predicting his rebounding clip was not a particularly noteworthy thing, but it’s been nice to see Love cleaning up the glass well to close out possessions thus far this year leading into the season’s suspension.

When it comes to scoring, it’s also been a big positive to see Love be efficient overall, and have a 37.4 percent three-point shooting clip on the season. He’s also somewhat silently had nearly the best effective field goal shooting clip of his career thus far at a rate of 55.0 percent.

Clearly, the inside-out game of Love is still by and away the best on Cleveland, and it’s evident that Love is one of the game’s best shooting bigs, as one can see with his off in the mid-range/mid-post and three-point shooting game both off-the-catch/off-screens and in the pick-and-pop game.

Thirdly, we’ll check out how my predictions held up in relation to Thompson for 2019-20.