NBA Season Preview 2017-18: Will Isaiah Thomas unlock Kevin Love’s playmaking?
Kevin Love has changed in many ways since becoming a member of the Cavaliers, but the part of his game that has been impacted the most by playing alongside LeBron James and Kyrie Irving is his passing.
Love used to be one of the best passing big men in the NBA. He averaged 4.4 assists per game in his final season with the Timberwolves, a number only five other forwards — James, Kevin Durant, Gordon Hayward, Nicolas Batum and Tyreke Evans — could surpass. It actually took Love two full seasons with the Cavaliers to record as many assists as he did in that one season with the Timberwolves.
Furthermore, 49 forwards averaged a greater number of assists than Love last season as opposed to five in 2013-14. He has basically gone from being Paul Millsap (3.7 assists per game) in the passing department to LaMarcus Aldridge (1.9).
One of the reasons for that difference is because Love doesn’t get the ball at the elbow nearly as much as he used to in Minnesota. He averaged 11.6 elbow touches per game in 2013-14, which put him behind only Marc Gasol (14.7) for the most in the league. The most Love has averaged since is 3.7 elbow touches per game and he’s dipped as low as 2.8 elbow touches per game. Once again, that’s like going from Gasol to Larry Nance Jr., who sports an incredibly low usage rating.
Those elbow touches were the source of 27.3 percent of Love’s assists in 2013-14. His ability to stretch the floor as a power forward drew his defender out of the paint and created openings for slashers like Corey Brewer, Kevin Martin and J.J. Barea to score. Sometimes those came in the form of handoffs from just inside the perimeter.
Other times Love would use his court vision to set up teammates off of cuts.
They weren’t always simple reads, either. Love surveys the defense similar to how Draymond Green does, giving him the confidence to thread the needle whenever there’s an opening. He is a legitimately good passer rather than someone whose assists are a byproduct of a higher usage rating.
The Cavaliers haven’t needed Love’s passing as much as the Timberwolves did because they have arguably the best facilitator in the NBA on their roster. However, trading Irving for Isaiah Thomas could help him become more like the facilitator we saw in Timberwolves due to the differences in their games. Whereas Irving is one of the league leaders in isolation scoring, Thomas is more comfortable operating without the ball in his hands. As a result, Love could become the primary creator when James isn’t on the floor and Thomas is.
Thomas should be more than comfortable playing off of Love as well. Beyond being former AAU teammates with Love, 19.5 percent of Thomas’ assisted baskets last season came from Celtics big man Al Horford. Thomas is more likely to create his own shot than let someone else set him up in general, but far more of his offense comes in off-ball situations than Irving’s does.
It’s easy, for example, to imagine Love taking the place of Horford on this play:
Thomas averaged 3.0 points per game off of hand-offs last season, the second highest mark in the NBA. He ranked in the 80.8 percentile with 1.06 point per possession. Replacing Horford with Love should be equally as effective because Love is also capable of spacing the floor for Thomas by screening and popping.
The same goes for when Love has the ball at the elbow or in the post and Thomas runs off of a screen for a jump shot. Thomas was amongst the league leaders in scoring off of screens and ranked in the 85.8 percentile with 1.15 points per possession. Irving was equally as efficient in those situations, but it made up 4.1 percent of his offense compared to 8.7 percent for Thomas.
It will be important for Love and Thomas to establish chemistry because the Cavaliers struggled when Love and Irving were on the court without James. It was only for an average of 5.5 minutes per game last season, but they went from outscoring opponents by 7.9 points per 100 possessions with all of them on the court to being outscored by 3.1 points per 100 possessions with just Love and Irving. While the defense remained almost the same without James on the court, the offense cratered from 116.4 points per 100 possessions to 103.4 points per 100 possessions.
Next: The biggest difference between Kyrie Irving and Isaiah Thomas
If Love and Thomas can keep the Cavaliers afloat in those minutes, it would make a huge difference to their regular season success and James’ workload. It would also help Love become more like the player he was with the Timberwolves even though he has settled into his role with the Cavaliers, which would add a different element to an already elite team.