4 Cleveland Cavaliers players who surprised this season

4 Cavs that surprised in 2021-22 – #2: Kevin Love

The second Cavs player that comes to mind as far as surprises was Kevin Love. I’d imagine that’s the case for most, if not all, Cavaliers fans, and this isn’t necessarily ranking by biggest surprise first, for context.

Anyway, it wasn’t simple to have clear expectations with Love before the season started. It seemed that he would be moving to a bench role, based on rumors/what was reportedly likely to happen coming into the year, but with a minutes-share reduction, would Love be bought-in fully, and would he make a considerable impact there?

Those were fair questions to ask. I was optimistic that it could lead to him being efficient and potentially a crucial bench spark; I just couldn’t say that for certain. That’s with other guys involved, and with how Love had struggled with injury the year prior, as he was only active in 25 games in 2020-21.

Fortunately for Love and the Wine and Gold, he was seemingly fully bought-in pretty early on, and all things considered, Love was excellent in a shift to a bench role. He had 13.6 points, 7.2 rebounds and 2.2 assists per contest this season, in only 22.5 minutes per game, and he knocked in 39.2 percent of his three-point attempts, of which were 6.4 per outing.

Love’s play off the bench consistently gave the Cavaliers a spark when he was brought in, as he was often a go-to catch-and-shoot target, and saw him have a resurgent season as a finisher, and he was still able to take advantage at times in the mid-post. That was with cross-matching, too, and Love’s passing was a bonus in his bench minutes on a number of occasions.

His defensive rebounding again helped as well, and for much of the season, I thought Love’s defensive effort gave the team a lift. That wasn’t the case all the time, but his team defense was much better in recent years past, and him being tied for first in the NBA in charges drawn with 26, per NBA.com’s hustle data, was something else, truly.

All in all, while he’s getting up there, if Love can remain mostly healthy, maybe he could excel again in this bench role for feasibly next season, and perhaps on a relatively team-friendly deal for another season or two, even. He was a finalist for the Sixth Man of the Year this season, and his impact this season in a shift to a bench role was a pleasant surprise.