Cleveland Cavaliers: Grading Kevin Love’s 2019-20 season thus far

Taking a look at Love’s offensive play

Love’s stat-line thus far of 17.6 points and 3.2 assists per outing is just about what I would’ve expected coming into the season.

That was under the assumption of times when Love would be available, and to his credit, he has been mostly able to go, as compared to in 2018-19, when he only appeared in 22 games mostly due to toe surgery.

Love is still clearly the Cavs’ best offensive big on the roster, and he’s been consistent for the most part, and has hit 37.4 percent of his three-point attempts, which is right about at his career average from deep of 37.0 percent. This year to this point, Love’s done so on a healthy 7.0 deep attempts per outing, too, which is on track to be a career-high, as indicated by Basketball Reference.

It hasn’t just been producing from deep via catch-and-shoots coming off screens and/or pick-and-pops, though. Love has somewhat silently had a near career-best in terms of effective field goal shooting thus far in 2019-20, with a clip of 55.0 percent.

He’s been very effective throughout games in making plays out of the mid-post, where he’s gotten deliveries to cutters such as Cedi Osman, Collin Sexton, Kevin Porter Jr., Larry Nance Jr., had solid big-to-big passing sequences with Tristan Thompson, and Love’s still done nice work on the low block as a scorer, too.

Nonetheless, there’s still been a number of times when Love doesn’t seem to be nearly assertive enough, and while some of him at times not being nearly enough of a scorer is to an extent coincided with Cleveland’s young guards not getting Love the rock effectively or timely enough, Love still in some games too passive.

I understand that Love’s had a bunch of injuries in his career, but the dude is a five-time All-Star. Overall, I’ve been satisfied and Love’s been efficient and though he’ll turn it over a bit too much, he’s done a good job as a secondary playmaker/offensive engine on most occasions.

In terms of offensive grading for him thus far this season, though, the occasional outings where he seemingly fades away for too long of stretches still irk me a bit for a player as talented as Love is. At any rate, with the amount of defensive attention he draws every game he’s out there, he’s been very good, and this season, the Cavs have had plenty of players that have needed the ball in their hands a considerable amount.

Love’s offensive grade thus far in 2019-20: A-

Next up, we’ll put the spotlight on Love’s defensive play this season to this point.