It was a tough ending to the 2021-22 season for the Cleveland Cavaliers, who lost two play-in games versus the Brooklyn Nets and Atlanta Hawks last week, which prevented them from reaching the Eastern Conference Playoffs. That’s disheartening for some, which I get, as the team was 35-23 heading into the All-Star festivities hosted in Cleveland, and then, the team was fourth in the East.
Injuries played a role in the club’s demise post-All-Star break, in particular, and the team was not close to the same defensively. Jarrett Allen‘s injury didn’t help, and Caris LeVert missing time post-All-Star didn’t help him establish a consistent rhythm nearly enough.
Even taking all of that into account, the Wine and Gold having 44 wins this season, a 22-win improvement from 2020-21, was quite a feat, and the club seems to be on an upward trajectory. That, to me, is still the overall takeaway from this season, and I’m looking forward to how the club can keep improving next season.
For now, though, it is meaningful to look back at how individual performers on the Cavaliers did during this 2021-22 campaign, and here, I wanted to take a closer look at how Kevin Love did.
Before the season, it was difficult to know what to expect from Love, with him coming off two injury-riddled seasons in the past three, and there being moments of visible frustration from him on the court, even more so in 2019-20. This was also with the sign-and-trade arrival of Lauri Markkanen from the Chicago Bulls, and Evan Mobley‘s draft selection, among other things.
It was rumored that Love would feasibly have a reduced role coming into the season, which appeared reasonable, but it still wasn’t clear in relation to how he’d do, and if he’d be a meaningful contributor game-to-game with others involved.
Fortunately, Love did very well, and in a shift to a bench role, was rejuvunated.
So how did Love grade out for the Cavs in 2021-22, then? We’ll examine that here.
In that realm, let’s get into Love’s grades for this now recently-concluded season for Cleveland, beginning with the offensive end.
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.
Love’s 2021-22 offensive grade: A
Love’s defensive play for the Cavs in 2021-22
Moving on to his defensive play this season, it was obvious that he was not going to be a stalwart on that end of the floor for Cleveland.
Love has never been a great on-ball defender, and with his athletic limitations when it comes to quickness, and him not being a rim protection presence, not much that is, there will struggles for him still on defense. Love was in his age-33 season, though, and coming into the season, with how Love had often had injury problems, nobody could’ve expected him to necessarily be an impact defensive player, frankly.
I’m not going to say that there still weren’t sequences or stretches where Love was not targeted when he was on the floor; those were inevitable, and down the stretch of the season with the teams’ injuries, that played out at times.
But, objectively, Love’s effort level on defense was much better this season than in recent years past, likely with his role change to a bench contributor coincided with that. And Love was healthy this season, aside from an absence due to COVID-19 health and safety protocols in November.
So, in fairness to Love, while there were still some on-ball ups and downs, he did compete better against opposing forwards/bigs at times on that end, and I have to give Love credit for his help as a team defender.
His rotations were more timely in contests to shooters, even with some lapses here and there, and the effort, generally, was much better, and the team benefited from that. Also, with Love mostly healthy, and in seemingly a way better place mentally, that played into him being tied for the league lead this season in charges drawn with 26, per NBA.com’s hustle data.
To reiterate, there were some struggles for Love on defense this season, but I thought based on the expectations, he did a pretty decent job for the most part in his role. The contests to shooters and effort level were positives, much more than not, in my opinion, and if he sticks around at least for next season, I’ll take that.
Love’s 2021-22 defensive grade: B
Love’s overall play for the Cavs in 2021-22
It’s tough to be too critical of how Love played this season for the Cavaliers. His move to the bench as a supersub did wonders for his individual play, based on how he efficient he was in his minutes-share, and him being healthy was huge for him and the team.
It was awesome to see Love provide a hell of a spark for the Wine and Gold this year off the bench as a catch-and-shoot player, as we alluded to, and even with him being an expiring player after next season and set to turn 34 in September, maybe he could stick around.
We’ll have to see if he and the team would be able to iron something out, but the thought doesn’t appear that far-fetched now, or maybe he could emerge as an expiring asset. I’ll table that for now.
Anyway, when touching on Love’s overall grade for this season, with both ends in mind, with how he immensely helped the Cavaliers offense, and his team defense being far better than in recent seasons past, I’m going to give Love two virtual pats on the back. That’s with his defensive rebounding being excellent in his respective role off the bench, too.
Love’s 2021-22 overall grade: A-
The dude was a finalist for the NBA’s Sixth Man of the Year, and I can’t say I expected that sort of play from him at the season’s outset. Who the hell did, honestly? I’m going with an A- grade for Love in 2021-22.