Report: Cavaliers have 'legitimate fear' Kevin Love will leave

The Cleveland Cavaliers are worried that Kevin Love will bolt as a free agent this offseason, according to Adrian Wojnarowski of Yahoo Sports.

Kevin Love’s season is finished. His career as a member of the Cleveland Cavaliers just might be finished as well. At least that’s a concern the Cavaliers hold, according to Adrian Wojnarowski of Yahoo Sports.

“I think all year long he has looked longingly at free agency and the possibility of what else is out there,” Wojnarowski said during an appearance on The Dan Patrick Show. “What the Cavaliers had really hoped for is that if he had played in the postseason, and had success, and had some big moments, and all of a sudden people start to look at Kevin Love differently — “he had a great Game 6 against the Bulls and got us to the conference finals” — and people started to see him as a winning player and a big moment guy, he hasn’t had those opportunities in the past, maybe he’d feel differently about that role he had there. But none of that is going to happen now, he’s out, and he won’t experience any of that. And the only big decision he’s going to be making is based on a regular season where he hasn’t embraced loved that role like Chris Bosh….

“He’s going to look at free agency, I think he’s going to look at other teams. He can always opt in and go into free agency next summer where there’s even a bigger pool of money. But there’s a legitimate fear within the Cavs that he will just walk.”

A report like this shouldn’t exactly come as a shock. There has long been speculation that Love would want to leave Cleveland after this season as a free agent. His role diminished significantly this year from what it was in past years and he hasn’t really been embraced by the Cavaliers’ king, LeBron James.

Still, it will undoubtedly be difficult for Love to leave Cleveland. He might not be stuffing the stat sheet like he used to and he might not be best friends with LeBron, but Love will have a chance to compete for a championship as long as he’s playing alongside James. Considering Love came to Cleveland having never made the playoffs, that aspect of staying with the Cavs has to be appealing to him.

But Cleveland has absolutely every right to be concerned. Love clearly wasn’t happy during the regular season and all that suffering was supposed to be worth it once he went on a deep run in the playoffs. But now he’s out for the year and won’t get to experience playing in the later rounds, meaning his memories from his first year as a Cavaliers will remain what they were from a not-so-pleasant regular season.

Love’s free agency sure will be one of the most interesting storylines of the offseason.

(H/T Pro Basketball Talk)

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Report: Cavaliers have ‘legitimate fear’ Kevin Love will leave as a free agent this summer

By Sam Richmond | May 7, 2015

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