Love

[Bricklayer]

At this point it seems entirely possible Kevin Love is done with the Cavs, and they may want to move on from the monster contract they just inked him for. Until they got a full strength test vs. the Warriors, I was less convinced. But he hasn't worked, and now may be out again while they lose again. Doesn't have to be true. The attraction of trying to ape the Heatles structure may keep LeBron in his corner, but its easy to see how the Cavs will be looking ahead at 4 more years of $20+mil, with a league leading mega-tax paying payroll (getting less with the huge boost in cap this summer), and go...uh uh.

So...several questions really must be asked:

1) Has Love Been Boshed? Or is he in premature decline? He's only 27. Rep is injury prone, but actually has played 75+ games 3 straight seasons now, just suffered high profile freak accidents in the playoffs.

2) If he's just been Boshed, could he ever recover to be what he was? Or is he so naturally passive/wussy that this is his comfort zone now.

3) Is the problem for him the Bron/Kyrie dynamic, or would he struggle alongside any star?

4) Is the defense so catastrophically bad he would scuttle improvement in that area (with the proviso he obviously is playing on a pretty good defensive team (10th) this season. Given that a major option for us to occupy the same role would be Ryan Anderson, are we even worrying about defense on the 3rd big?

5) Should we even be looking for another star to open up high end possibilities, or just building a rock solid defensive club of roleplayers guaranteed to change the culture?

6) What would it take to get him? Assuming the Cavs want out from under his contract, how stiff a market is there after these last two years? Rudy and Kosta would match contracts. Both guys are both on very good contracts for the new CBA though. Underpaid.


The argument would of course be, that if Kevin Love returned to being Kevin Love once freed from Cavs prison, he and Cuz would be the most prolific frontcourt in the game. When Cuz was out, we'd finally have another star to turn to. Why pay Ryan Anderson $18mil rather than Love $20? Cuz/Love = could likely run some Princeton sets too if that's what we wanted to do. Cuz/Love and Willie/Love means he'd always be out there with a defensive big. You resign Rondo to keep the bigs happy, and its more like Rubio for him than Kyrie's selfishness.

The arguments against are obvious. Defense, wussyness.

 

[LA King Fan II]

I think Love would thrive with a big that demands attention and a sharing point guard. I thinks he's wuss-ish but less so than Rudy and a better rebounder and shooter too. Get me team players like Conley or Austin Rivers too and we'd have a better team. No title contender without a Jimmy Butler as our 2 guard but better.

I wish:

Rivers
Butler
Love
Cuz
Wcs

Keep Curry.....

 

[KingsCitizen]

I'll be on board on this, primarily because we got Trill and Boogie's defense is already much improved.
I feel that Love have turned into a spot up range big and not the same post monster he was in Minny. Joerger could change that considering he played Gasol/Zbo pretty well and together.

 

[Gilles]

Love's problem seems to be Kyrie, and it's on defensive end: any team with a good P&R guard will exploit Love/Irving pairing to death, since Kyrie is basically gone from D after 1 screen, and Kevin doesn't have dimensions/quickness to do anything after that. Can Love be less exposed with better guard play? Most likely, but the level of improvement is obviously unclear. Cousins, Love and, say, Holiday look like it might work rather well, but, of course, you need to get Jrue first, before you can see, if it works.
Ryno has been a contributor in 3 PO series, and, while in NO he stepped on the court and didn't manage to worsen already very bad defense, in Orlando defense really dropped a lot with him on the court.
P.S. Kyrie got "bad defender" description pretty quickly and, while some argued "oh, it's due to huge offensive load, he has to carry", it turns out, Kyrie is a bad defender, period.
P.S #2 Love must really miss Ricky Rubio.

 

[ParniValjak]

Oh I like it! I like it a lot!

I think Love has been marginilized with the Cavs. He is basically their stretch 4 that is asked to sit on the perimeter and shoot 3s. In Minny he was a lot more than that. Post ups, 3s, rebounding and some great passing. With Love abd DMC we can run a lot of the princeton stuff.

I don't think that Love is in decline but the role he has been playing has made him appear half the player he was. With us he would be the clear #2 and if we are running the Princeton stuff then he will be asked to do a lot of creating whether from the elbow or the low post.

Definitely worth a shot and $20 million is not a monsterous contract with the new cap (especially since its projected to go up again after next season).

 

[R2D2]

Sure, I would be keen to get Love for all of the above stated reasons.
The problem is we don't have the assets to trade for Love, and there will be other suitors!

Why would the Cavs trade Love for Rudy and KK?
Just because it works on a trade machine? Or are they trying to drive LeBron out of town?
Rudy is NOT a solution for them at PF, and KK is redundant if they can resign Mozgov.

Not to mention it is another missed opportunity of having Gay/Love on the same team. I mean, the merchandise possibilities are endless...

 

[King Baller]

Kevin Love is a very talented player and I always want more talent on the Kings. So from that perspective I like the "trade for Love" idea. I don't think Lebron would ever allow it though.

 

[dude12]

Given the above scenario that we could sign Anderson for $18 mill, I'd take Anderson and then trade Koufos and/or Gay for a SG or other pieces.

 

[206Fan]

I think Love would be too hard to get. We'd need to give up our 8th pick. Rudy sounds nice in theory, but they already have LBJ.. plus, he'll be 30. Kofus would be a solid backup for them.

Cavs doesn't have a good offensive system, and it would get worse with Gay. He's too much of an iso player that isn't a great 3pt shooter.

It would come down to that pick. There are teams out there who would be able to put up a better option than just Gay+Kofus.

 

[LPKingsFan]

I'd imagine the Cavs look first to someone like the Celtics for a guy like Crowder. But Ainge could very well not be interested, wary of duplicating the Love/Irving defensive deficiencies with a Love/Thomas pairing.

Would we be interested? If there were any legs to the Gasol rumors, I'd guess we would be. Love is a great passer, and with all the talk of going back to the early 2000s style offense, he and Boogie would fit the Vlade and Webber mold to a T. Defense would be a concern, though. If you are trotting out Casspi and someone solid like Courtney Lee on the wings, that would be a start. But then the question is, as it has seemed to be for every exercise like this so far this offseason, what do you do at point?

All that said, I'd guess the Cavs could get better offers than what we'd reasonably give up.

 

[New Era]

I think Love would be too hard to get. We'd need to give up our 8th pick. Rudy sounds nice in theory, but they already have LBJ.. plus, he'll be 30. Kofus would be a solid backup for them.

Cavs doesn't have a good offensive system, and it would get worse with Gay. He's too much of an iso player that isn't a great 3pt shooter.

It would come down to that pick. There are teams out there who would be able to put up a better option than just Gay+Kofus.

Personally, I'd give up Gay and the pick for Love. I actually don't think the Cavs would go for it. They aren't in a position to draft young players and wait 2-3 years for them to develop. Their LBJ window (if there ever was one) is closing.

 

[funkykingston]

The argument would of course be, that if Kevin Love returned to being Kevin Love once freed from Cavs prison, he and Cuz would be the most prolific frontcourt in the game. When Cuz was out, we'd finally have another star to turn to. Why pay Ryan Anderson $18mil rather than Love $20? Cuz/Love = could likely run some Princeton sets too if that's what we wanted to do. Cuz/Love and Willie/Love means he'd always be out there with a defensive big. You resign Rondo to keep the bigs happy, and its more like Rubio for him than Kyrie's selfishness.

The arguments against are obvious. Defense, wussyness.

On paper this seems like a good idea. If the deal is Gay, Koufos and the #8 for Love (probably in a three way deal because I don't see why Cleveland wants Rudy) then the Kings would actually open up a little over $3 million more in caproom. That means (ignoring cap holds for Rondo & Moreland) they'd have a little over $31 million to spend in free agency, assuming Butler opts out. Resigning Rondo probably eats up almost half of that (I'm guessing $15 million) and now there is $16 million left. For that kind of money I think you'd be looking at Courtney Lee or Gerald Henderson types to fill the SG spot. Let's say Lee for $10-$11 million. Now there's $5 million left and 6 roster spots to fill, notably backup SF, backup PF/C (depending on what we want to label Willie) and third string C/PF, SF and PG. There'd also be the room exception for $3 million and then minimum contracts.

Cousins/Cauley-Stein/minimum contract
Love/Room exception player (Acy?)/minimum contract
Casspi/$5 million player/minimum contract
Lee/McLemore/Belinelli
Rondo/Collison/minimum contract

That's a pretty strong starting lineup that, at least on paper, would work well together. Great rebounding, pretty good shooting (outside of the starting PG), potential for some very good passing and pretty terrible defensively. Collison would be the 6th man/dedicated bench scorer, WCS is a nice defensive weapon off the bench, Ben is likely still Ben and hopefully Marco at least gets back to being a plus shooter. That's a pretty bare bones bench.

It also hinges on Love and Cousins being an effective pairing. Love has noticeably improved defensively this season but really he had nowhere to go but up. He's sieve on that end and he and Cousins are going to struggle against more mobile lineups. There would have to be a very strong team defense for that to work.

One option of course would be starting Cauley-Stein and letting Love be the sixth man but that's not a role he's ever played in any part of his career. That's a pretty big gamble. He doesn't really have the type of game where he scores in bunches. In fact, a big part of his struggles in Cleveland is that he was used to getting more touches in general and more touches in the post specifically. He's a rhythm player IMO. So I think Love pretty much has to start which could be an issue against quite a few teams.

The argument for Anderson over Love (other than costing a bit less - I'm guessing $16 million rather than $18 million but either way less than Love's $21 mil) is that he already IS a weapon off the bench. He's not the rebounder or passer that Love is but he's no worse defensively, is a better shooter, and is perfectly suited to being a bench scorer.

But in addition it means that the Kings have fewer roster holes to fill, less questions about potential fit, the #8 pick to add to potentially add a significant piece to the core or deal for a veteran and the ability to still trade Rudy Gay to reshape the roster.

I'm not completely on board with needing a stretch four so I'm not sure I'd deal for Love OR sign Anderson but I do feel like the team can really only keep Gay OR re-sign Rondo. If Rajon is brought back then the team needs to find a more complimentary piece like a shooting PF. In that scenario I'd rather see them sign Rino, use their draft pick and trade Gay to cut payroll and help reshape the roster.

But I don't suppose any of that matters because even with the last two years lowering his value, Love would still probably fetch a better return than Gay, Koufos and #8. Which is probably a good thing for the Kings honestly.

 

[bajaden]

Love's problem seems to be Kyrie, and it's on defensive end: any team with a good P&R guard will exploit Love/Irving pairing to death, since Kyrie is basically gone from D after 1 screen, and Kevin doesn't have dimensions/quickness to do anything after that. Can Love be less exposed with better guard play? Most likely, but the level of improvement is obviously unclear. Cousins, Love and, say, Holiday look like it might work rather well, but, of course, you need to get Jrue first, before you can see, if it works.
Ryno has been a contributor in 3 PO series, and, while in NO he stepped on the court and didn't manage to worsen already very bad defense, in Orlando defense really dropped a lot with him on the court.
P.S. Kyrie got "bad defender" description pretty quickly and, while some argued "oh, it's due to huge offensive load, he has to carry", it turns out, Kyrie is a bad defender, period.
P.S #2 Love must really miss Ricky Rubio.

Agree on your analogy of Irving/Love defense. Irving is a terrible defender, which the Warriors are exposing. I don't think that Rondo/Love would be any better, therefore if we were to acquire Love, I don't want Rondo on the floor with him. More than ever, I'd pray for Dunn to fall to us at eight, because he's the kind of defender that can make Love look like a decent defender. Where the Kings defense got killed is on the perimeter, throwing all the defensive load on the frontcourt. So if we acquire Love, and Dunn doesn't fall to us, then we would need to sign a defensive minded PG, or trade for one.

I feel Love was misused by the Cav's. They essentially wanted him to become a role player. To become a stretch four. Now granted, he's a good shooter from the three, but Love has always been a terrific passer, and rebounder. Those three things are his strengths, and that's not how the Cav's used him. I don't think Love is a wuss. I don't think he had any choice if he wanted to play along side Lebron. It was either conform, or war.

 

[Iced Espresso]

No way we get Love without WCS out.

I'm not sure we can get Love regardless.

 

[LA King Fan II]

I could see Lakers offering the #2 pick and another guy and getting Love.

 

[Peter_Gibbons]

The Cavs' problem is not really Love and they may realize that by the end of this series. I've always argued with my friends back then regarding the Wiggins trade as I believed Kyrie was the one that should've been used to trade for Love so they can keep Wiggins.

LeBron doesn't need a ball dominant PG who can't play a lick of D. If he had a role player who can shoot as a PG + the ultra athletic Wiggins at the 2 right now, the series may be a lot more competitive. That ship has sailed though but my point is, they might try to (or they should) trade Kyrie instead.

 

[Mass]

I don't know. Even if I like the idea, I want to see DMC and Willie getting the majority of the minutes, and I want them to play together at least 30 mins per night. I think Boogie and WCS are potentially better then a Boogie and Love front court. I truly think they can be the foundation of our team.

 

[Bricklayer]

No way we get Love without WCS out.

I'm not sure we can get Love regardless.

He doesn't have that value anymore. Nobody will be giving up a true superstar's package to get him now.

The problem people are not seeing is the monster contract. Somebody would be willing, but a 16 and 9 guy being paid: $21.2mil, $22,6mil, $24.1mil, +$25.6mil (player option) is going to make people nervous, and chew up a lot of assets or caproom just to reach that salary. I would imagine a young asset or two in an eventual package, but he's not going to bring back a king's ransom at this point.

 

[ESP47]

We need defense and he provides nothing of the sort.

 

[dude12]

I'm surprised at the perceived value of Love here. If I'm reading some of this correctly....
Trade Gay, Koufos and 8 for Love

When there is a great chance we could have all this
Gay, Koufos, pick at 8 AND Anderson....

From there, Sac has actual trade pieces to fill SG or whatever.

 

[Sac.Kings]

Definitely an interesting proposition... I guess it depends on the direction the FO wants the Kings to go towards. If it's a defensive approach (with the hiring of Joerger, that's what I am leaning towards) then Kevin Love makes little sense. He may not be as bad a defender as he is made out to be currently, but he's no defensive stopper either. However, he can be a glue guy for us on offense. The one that makes the right passes when they count and someone you can rely on to score if Boogie is sitting on the bench. He was the #1 option for the Wolves for a long time and put up some big numbers, but can he return to that form or even close to it? Or is he destined to now play 3rd fiddle for the remainder of his career?

It also depends on what we have to give up in exchange... If it's the #8 pick and some fill ins, then I am all over it. I wouldn't give up Willie, but Rudy I certainly would, though he makes zero sense for the Cavs. I am not sure we have what they would need to complete the trade. Ryan Anderson, the alternate target, would probably be only slightly cheaper and the FG% between the two were almost identical this past season (both from 2 and 3) with Love clearly being the better rebounder (+4 RPG margin) and passer (+1.5 APG margin). Defensive plus/minus is in favor of Anderson (-2.9 to +0.9).

Tough to make a call without knowing what our pieces would be in a trade scenario. We could sign Anderson outright and he is already comfortable in either a bench or starting role. With Love, we would need to give up pieces and the biggest question of all is what do we do with Willie? He would certainly be the first big off the bench, but would it be wise to not pair up Willie/Cousins? Given time, I feel like they can do major damage.

If pressed for a decision, I would sign Anderson and use any of the following: #8 pick, Rudy, Ben, and potentially Collison/Rondo (sign and trade?) to get a real SG and shore up the bench. I would swing for the fences and go for a high profile free agent and see what shakes loose. With Love, you would have to give up a lot of your assets to get him, which would greatly hinder your ability to make any further trades. Free agency is usually a losing proposition for us, so once you get Kevin Love, you are stuck in the mud. Anderson isn't nearly the player that Kevin Love is, but he would fill the same void (shooting) that Love does now and he wouldn't eat up any trade assets.

http://www.basketball-reference.com/players/a/anderry01.html

http://www.basketball-reference.com/players/l/loveke01.html

 

[notoriousBEN3]

Lebron had some very nice things to say about Mclemore when he was drafted. Maybe he still believes in his potential. Obviously more people needed for the trade, but just saying

 

[Bricklayer]

Lebron had some very nice things to say about Mclemore when he was drafted. Maybe he still believes in his potential. Obviously more people needed for the trade, but just saying

Just moneywise, if there ever were such a trade, it would almost have to be Rudy. Then yes, Ben because Bron liked him and maybe the Cavs could squint and call that youth/potential, and Kosta because the Cavs were interested in him as a starting center.

About the max I would think it makes sense to offer. A way to get their salaries under control as much as anything, cheap roleplaying starting center, Ben to be Bron's pet puppy,. The Rudy thing makes little sense unless they lose all confidence and decide to smallball it in light of the Warriors beatdown, but its basically the only contract that could make it happen.

Note, however, in such a scenario we would have just traded exactly the two former Memphis guys who might be expected to speak Joergerese.

 

[Spike]

 

[SacTownKid]

Rondo and Love is no go for me. You've almost recreated defensively the major shortcomings the Cavs have right now. It would have to be one or the other.

 

[KingMilz]

We can be the all-empty stats first team with Love/Cousins/Rondo/Gay if we get Love and Rondo than forget Viveks 4 on 5 ball it will be 3 on 5.

 

[kingsboi]

Love can go play else where and stay far far away from here. This team is hopefully building an identity under Joerger about being a tough nosed team, that will bang you inside and punish you with size and length. Love needs to get traded to a team where he can be the number one option again and put up all-star like stats and in the process have his team competing for a top 5 lottery pick.

 

[206Fan]

I'm surprised at the perceived value of Love here. If I'm reading some of this correctly....
Trade Gay, Koufos and 8 for Love

When there is a great chance we could have all this
Gay, Koufos, pick at 8 AND Anderson....

From there, Sac has actual trade pieces to fill SG or whatever.

Anderson has nowhere the value of Love though. Love is 1000x better. Anderson is a stretch 4 who can't rebound. Love is a star offensive player who's a great rebounder and passer. Cousins-Love would be our building block going forward....

Love can be your 1st or 2nd best scorer. Anderson should not be anything more than your 3rd best scorer.

However, I think the Kings would be giving up way too much with Gay, Kofus, and 8...mostly because we would then have holes all at PG, SG, and now SF.

 

[whozit]

Anderson has nowhere the value of Love though. Love is 1000x better. Anderson is a stretch 4 who can't rebound. Love is a star offensive player who's a great rebounder and passer. Cousins-Love would be our building block going forward....

Love can be your 1st or 2nd best scorer. Anderson should not be anything more than your 3rd best scorer.

However, I think the Kings would be giving up way too much with Gay, Kofus, and 8...mostly because we would then have holes all at PG, SG, and now SF.

I agree that it is too much to give up. Being able to do a deal would depend on how motivated of "seller" Cleveland is and whatever other offers are out there.

 

[KingsFanGER]

I'm all for option 5 - build a rock solid defensive club with high profile role players, that are unselfish, play D and move the ball well. Make the playoffs like this and try to attract a second star that actually fits DMC on offense AND defense, when the Kings aren't considered one of the worst franchises in the league history anymore.