While LeBron James thinks the Cleveland Cavaliers could help Kevin Love’s offensive input, he also believes Love needs to be more aggressive.
One of the recurring themes with the Cleveland Cavaliers’ turbulent chemistry this season has been the issue of Kevin Love. He’s fallen a long way in terms of production since his days with the Minnesota Timberwolves, and even surrounded by so much talent and playing next to LeBron James, the Cavaliers haven’t come close to integrating him in their offense to recreate his 26-point, 12-rebound season in 2013-14.
That was always going to be the case, of course, but there have still been concerns over his role reduction to someone who primarily spots up from beyond the arc, rather than being fully utilized as the talented post scorer he is. Now, LeBron has commented further on the matter, saying that the situation can be helped by both the Cavs and Love (per Rick Noland).
LeBron says Cavs can help Love by getting him some easy looks, but also says PF has to help himself and be more aggressive
— Rick Noland MG/CT (@RickNoland) March 23, 2016
Since David Blatt was fired, new head coach Tyronn Lue has said that he wants to get Love more involved in the offense, creating more chances for him in the post and finding him more shots from the elbow. Prior to Lue’s hiring on January 22, Love averaged 12.7 field goal attempts and 15.6 points per game, and those numbers have fallen slightly to 12.3 and 15.5 in the 24 games since.
As you can see, there’s hardly any change, showing one of many ways that Lue’s hiring hasn’t transformed the Cavs and how Love still isn’t being utilized further.
An average of 5.4 of Love’s 12.5 nightly field goal attempts this season come from three-point range, equating to 43.2 percent of his total shots. Regardless of how he could be more aggressive to get inside and drive (which has never been his strength), there’s no question that him taking almost half of shots from beyond the arc isn’t the best way to maximize what he has to offer and add diversity to the offense.
Along with players being frustrated with Kyrie Irving’s lack of passing, there have been plenty of chemistry problems in Cleveland. So while LeBron is right that some aggressiveness could help Love (maybe that could do the unthinkable and start improving his poor defense, too) there’s also some responsibility on the part of the Cavs to use him further in the post and stray away slightly from Irving’s isolation play and the shooting of others.
Whether this will happen or improve to a high enough level to challenge the Golden State Warriors is another story altogether.