CLEVELAND — There’s perhaps no one better positioned to sum up the Cavaliers’ state of being than Kevin Love, the club’s 34-year-old elder statesman.
The power forward, somehow now entering his ninth season in Cleveland, was traded to the club in exchange for then-No. 1 pick Andrew Wiggins—a blockbuster move the Cavs made to flip the win-now switch upon LeBron James’s return to town in 2014. Two years later, Love was part of the championship team that won the city’s first major sports crown in 52 years in improbable fashion. And two years after that, he saw the joyride end abruptly when James took his talents to Los Angeles, largely leaving the Cavs with Love, coach Tyronn Lue and leftover parts. Cleveland immediately went from having reached four consecutive NBA Finals to a 19–63 campaign in 2018–19, a 19–46 season in ’19–20 and a 22–50 mark in ’20–21.
People understandably wondered why Love, seemingly on an island as a valuable vet with a rebuilding club, remained with the wine and gold. At times, after a couple of ugly on-court tantrums, it honestly appeared as if Love himself might have been wondering the same thing.
