Cleveland Cavaliers: One key goal for Kevin Love for 2020-21

Kevin Love is still one of the most important players on the Cleveland Cavaliers, and with his talent level, a key goal for him jumps out for next season.

The Cleveland Cavaliers‘ 2019-20 season is done, as of reports on Thursday; they were not a club invited to the current season’s resumption at ESPN’s Wide World of Sports Complex at Disney World.

The Cavs clearly did not have a stellar campaign, as the squad ended out with a 19-46 record, which was the second-worst in the NBA.

Even while that was the case, Kevin Love was somewhat silently very good, to a large extent, this past season for Cleveland. Of course, he had his moments of frustration on the floor/on the bench, but following those, from early-to-mid January onward, Love was much more engaged and was seemingly a model teammate.

Looking at next season, while the emergence of Collin Sexton as a go-to scorer for the Cavs should lead to him being the Cavs’ primary option next season, Love will still be Cleveland’s second option, I believe, and he’ll make his presence felt in a big way.

Moreover, looking at 2020-21, a key goal for Love jumps out, and it’d be great if he had a true shooting rate of 61.0 percent for the Cleveland Cavaliers.

Last season, Love was a rock solid inside-out big, which helped space the floor for Sexton, Darius Garland, even though Garland often had his struggles converting as a scorer, along with others.

In 2019-20, Love had 17.6 points per game, and hit 37.4 percent of his career-high 7.0 three-point attempts per contest.

Love was clearly one of Cleveland’s best off-ball and also off-movement shooters as well, and Love proved to excel in the mid-range area, often converting after using jabs to create space, and he hit some off-screen looks in that area at times throughout games, too.

Looking at next season, even while pieces such as Sexton, along with Darius Garland, Kevin Porter Jr. and Larry Nance Jr. will be key contributors/on-ball perimeter threats, I still foresee Love getting his share of post-ups, and he’ll be one of Cleveland’s best perimeter shooters.

In 2020-21, given him still being one of the NBA’s best inside-out bigs, I’d love for Love to have a true shooting rate of 61.0-plus percent.

Last season, even while it took some time for Love to mesh with Sexton to a large degree, along with Garland and KPJ, Love still had a near-career-best 55.0 percent effective field goal shooting clip, and his true shooting rate was 59.9 percent.

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So where did I come up with 61.0 true shooting rate goal for him for next season, then?

Love’s career-high in that metric was during LeBron James’ last season of his second stint with the Cleveland Cavaliers in 2017-18, in which Love had a true shooting rate of 61.4 percent, per Basketball Reference.

Even while Love won’t have LeBron’s playmaking/driving gravity next season, this goal does not seem far-fetched for Love at all, considering how his true shooting rate was in 2019-20.

With Garland and Sexton having another campaign alongside Love, and with Andre Drummond being reportedly likely to pick up his $28.8 million player option for next season likely providing a key rolling/post-up presence with Love a fair amount, Love should have plenty of quality opportunities as a scorer.

Love, who had 3.2 assists per game last season, will be a key secondary playmaker again I’d imagine, and for good reason, but again, to me, this key goal stands out for him regarding him being a really efficient scorer, especially to help out other pieces, such as Nance.

Dylan Windler, who did not play at all last season due to complications involving a stress reaction in his left leg, could be in that conversation, too, and I’d imagine would really benefit from Love’s presence.

While it’d be somewhat difficult, given the attention he draws as a shooter, for Love to meet our own Zane Harris’ bold prediction for him in leading regular rotation Cavs in three-point shooting percentage for next season, this 61.0 percent true shooting rate key goal seems attainable.

Additionally, it would still be an impressive accomplishment.

It’s evident that Love, even while I could see his scoring workload go down a bit next year, is still a crucial piece for the Cavaliers.

With that being the case, next season, I’d love to see him essentially set a near-new career-high in true shooting percentage and mesh better alongside Cleveland’s young pieces.