Cavs Player Grades: Kevin Love excels in move to bench role
By Dan Gilinsky
Love’s offensive play for the Cavs in 2021-22
First examining Love’s play on offense this season, it was one of his best seasons in years, honestly, when considering the role he was in. I acknowledge that he’s not lived up to his four-year, $120.4 million contract extension from back in the summer of 2018, and there was bumpiness for him in recent years before this one.
But when taking a glance at his play in this new bench role, this did maximize Love’s impact, as he had 13.6 points per contest, in just 22.5 minutes per outing. He connected on 39.2 percent of his three-point attempts per game, which among players that realistically qualified, led the Cavaliers.
Along with that, Love’s 187 made triples were the third-most made triples in a single season in team history, which is very impressive, with how he mostly came off the bench and was playing feasibly 20-25 minutes per game regularly.
His catch-and-shoot prowess and range often gave the Cavaliers a spark when he was in there, and whether it was coming from ball-swings, pick-and-pops or off movement at times, Love was far more typically than not, in a great rhythm. We saw him get tons of shooting foul calls from his patented pump fakes, given his shooting reputation, too, and at times, he was a very meaningful mid-post presence as well.
Plus, I thought Love had a better season than in recent years past as a finisher, largely because of him being healthy and likely because he was in a better rhythm otherwise.
And I don’t discount Love’s help as a passer, either. He had 2.2 assists per contest, which didn’t blow any doors off, but he’s a heady ball-mover, and per Cleaning The Glass, his assist rate of 15.1 percent placed in the 82nd percentile among bigs.
There were still some off stretches for Love this season, which was understandable, given the role change, and with the range of his shots. Overall, though, he did a terrific job this year in what the team wanted from him, and he gave the club a ton of offensive juice off the pine. This was his best season, with the role change in mind, since 2017-18, which was Love’s last All-Star appearance.