Recent tweet by Cavs perfectly encapsulates Kevin Love-Tristan Thompson bond

Cleveland Cavaliers bigs Kevin Love and Tristan Thompson have grown so close over the years.

Kevin Love and Tristan Thompson have seemed to grow closer and closer as teammates and buddies over the years. Love originally was a trade piece acquired by the Cleveland Cavaliers before the 2014-15 season/before LeBron James’ return tenure via three-team deal with the Minnesota Timberwolves and the Philadelphia 76ers, and Thompson was drafted by the Wine and Gold in 2011.

Of course, Love and Thompson are still on the Cavs to this point, and it’s clear that they are such close friends and often seem to share a brotherly relationship, based on comments by one another in that regard over the years.

Love and Thompson have been key players for the Cavs, too, in the last two seasons sans LeBron, and Thompson, in particular, has seemingly taken on a primary leadership role.

TT is fresh off having a career year in 2019-20 as well, as he had career-bests in points and assists per game with 12.1 and 2.1, respectively. He did a really solid job on the interior and team sense defensively, too, and had a near-career-best in rebounds with 10.1 per contest.

Albeit TT’s future with the Cavs is uncertain currently, because he is on expiring deal after the formal end of 2019-20, and Cleveland could seemingly go with a big in the upcoming draft. I’d be a big fan of USC’s Onyeka Okongwu, for example, if that were to be the case.

Andre Drummond fully intends to pick up his $28.8 player option for this next season, too, and while it’s anything but a certainty at this point it seems, Forbes‘ Evan Dammarell reported that Drummond and the Cavs have been “exploring” a potential long term extension. Dammarell did note, though, that Thompson is interested in re-signing with the Cavaliers via one-year deal, so perhaps we’ll see him back with the Wine and Gold.

Anyway, swinging back to the Love-Thompson dynamic, it has been pretty cool to see over the years the two grow slow close since Love has been with the Wine and Gold.

In that spectrum, a recent tweet from the Cleveland Cavaliers perfectly encapsulates the Love-TT bond.

On Saturday, the Cavs tweeted out a gif involving Love and Thompson with Love really into it in seemingly a shootaround, which was along the lines of Love being their featured player across their social media channels. This tweet perfectly encapsulates the Love-Thompson bond, to me most notably, too.

It’s refreshing that again, since Love has been a Cavalier, over the years, him and TT have grown closer and closer, and that bond has come from plenty of experience together.

That duo, along with Matthew Dellavedova (who is also set to be expiring), are the current Cavs players who were around back in that 2016 NBA Finals comeback over the Golden State Warriors. Delly would then be re-acquired via three-team trade after a stop with the Milwaukee Bucks, for context.

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Anyway, this team from the Cleveland Cavaliers on Saturday perfectly encapsulates how Love and Thompson, in particular given the gif, have such a close bond.

As a Cavs fan, that’s been refreshing to know that both have grown so tight over the years, too, and we’ve seen that seemingly pay off in regards to their on-floor chemistry as well.

Whether or not TT is eventually back with the Cavs, feasibly via one-year deal based on Dammarell’s report, is uncertain at this point, but rest assured, Love and TT will realistically always have a brotherly-type relationship.

At minimum, though, I’m definitely looking forward to seemingly a fully bought-in Love with the Cavs this next season with J.B. Bickerstaff at head coach from the jump, which should only help Collin Sexton, Kevin Porter Jr. and others.

Love, while his and the team’s dynamic wasn’t ideal earlier on, was a model teammate in the last two or so months of this now-past season, and he was rock solid still with 17.6 points, 9.8 rebounds and 3.2 assists per game.

He hit 37.4 percent of a career-high 7.0 three-point attempts per outing as well.