3 lineups the Cavs can deploy with Kevin Love this season

The Rubio Show: Ricky Rubio-Donovan Mitchell-Dean Wade-Kevin Love-Evan Mobley

For the third potential Cavs lineup involving Love I’d be particularly interested to see this season, I went with Ricky Rubio, Donovan Mitchell, Dean Wade and Evan Mobley in this group. This would figure to be a five-man unit we could see more so in the second half of the year, for context; I’m calling this one “The Rubio Show,” for now.

I’m not anticipating we’ll see Rubio be quite what he was as a scoring presence last season in his 34 appearances for Cleveland, in which he had 13.1 points per game as a supersub, in fairness. Despite that, in this sort of lineup, I do believe with how him and Mitchell played their share of minutes together with Utah, they could be an impressive backcourt pairing for stretches again in Cleveland when Rubio is back.

With the playmaking those two can provide, it could lead to a number of open looks for Love himself on catch-and-shoots, and Wade, off of that, could stand to benefit himself with the shooting threat both Mitchell and Love possess. Rest assured, Rubio would be able to throw dimes to Wade in those instances.

Or, alternatively, if Mitchell is attacking downhill from Rubio deliveries to start possessions off, he’d be able to hit looks on the inside himself, or Mitchell should be able to throw feeds to Love on the weak side if help is looking to take away dumpoffs to Mobley. Strong side dishes to Wade could be viable as well, in said sequences.

From there, in this lineup, perhaps we could see Cleveland look to have Mobley at times initiate more from the elbows, where he could look to shooters, or play two-man games with Rubio via handoffs, leading to either being able to have a two-way go or fake to the other off that. That could result in meaningful drives and/or interior attempts at the rim, or with the vision of both, the three other shooters on the perimeter could be open for catch-and-shoots.

Anyways, as it pertains to Love, he’s definitely a piece that I believe should be able to help a number of other Cavaliers players again this season, provided he’s mostly healthy. He missed the last three preseason games because of him banging his knee on another player in the first preseason game at the Philadelphia 76ers, but those absences were due to precaution. He is 34, so I understood the reasoning there.

In any case, that isn’t anything to really be concerned about, I believe, and generally, this coming season, we should see Love make a big difference in that bench role, just like in his resurgent 2021-22 campaign. With his shooting impact, I do believe we could see him in a number of different lineups throughout middle stretches of games, especially, and perhaps at times in closing units.