If the Cleveland Cavaliers want to build a team with the best possible chance of defeating a team like the Golden State Warriors, they need to consider trading Kevin Love.
To end a relationship between LeBron James and their head coach that clearly wasn’t made in heaven, the Cleveland Cavaliers have now fired David Blatt and replaced him with former assistant Tyronn Lue. Win record and success aside, Blatt just never truly fit in with LeBron in terms of building championship winning chemistry, morale and respect. Now that the Cavaliers have acted with that imperfect fit, could they act again by making a trade to resolve another?
This of course means the possibility of trading Kevin Love, who, as the third offensive option with notoriously questionable defense, isn’t the best fit they could hope. He’s obviously highly talented and his facilitating, floor spacing, outlet passes and rebounding are all important, but is that quite enough? At least, for $113 million over five years, that is.
The Cavs need to build a team that can defeat the Golden State Warriors and San Antonio Spurs. After all, that’s who they’re going to be facing in the NBA Finals this season. And at the moment, with their win now attitude, the limited offensive usage and poor defense of Love might not cut it. When Golden State run rings around Love like this, you can see why.
It goes without saying that that kind of defense isn’t going to do anything to stop the Warriors. Love should have been able to read where Green was going far more attentively, he shouldn’t have gone so far under the screen even if he thought Green was going to drive (he knows he can shoot), and he shouldn’t have hopelessly over-run to the perimeter to leave Green with a clear lane to the basket.
With this kind of play, where Love is totally outmatched away from the basket against Green and all the shooters the Warriors have to offer, he simply isn’t a great fit if the Cavs want the best chance to win a ring against such a team.
This is obviously just one play as an example, and he’s by no means the only reason Golden State schooled Cleveland in their 132-98 win this week. The Cavs were totally out-matched due to their poor defensive rotations, failure to keep up with the Warriors’ clinical ball movement, and inferior team offense. So, as the third offensive option with defense that leaves an awful lot to be desired, that only enhances the Warriors’ ability to create mismatches and attack the defensive weakness of Love with Draymond and others, a trade can certainly be considered.
His role and contributions to be able to make the Cavaliers a title-winning team simply don’t justify his $113 million contract. After the Blatt firing, it only sparks more ideas of whether they need to trade Love for a piece that can further help them take down their two real opponents to win a title — they need to cater their team to the Warriors and Spurs now.
If he is traded, Timofey Mozgov and Tristan Thompson will form the starting frontcourt.
So, here are five possible trades to bring in someone who can serve the exact purpose they need to win a championship against whichever all-time great team they’ll face.
We can’t know exactly what the Cavaliers will actually do, but some hypotheticals are always interesting to discuss.
Next: 5. The perfect versatile wing