How will Kevin Love fit into the Heat’s rotation?

As reported by Adrian Wojnarowski, the Heat have signed Kevin Love after his buyout with the Cavs.

Love has regressed this season due to injury and age, but the former champion is still a solid three-point shooter who can contribute to a winning rotation. How will Love fit into the Heat’s rotation? What impact will he have on this team?

Despite the fact that the Heat has been lacking a forward, Love may be coming off the bench. While Kevin Love has a shot to start due to the fact that the Heat don’t have a lot of playable forwards, I would strongly expect that he comes off the bench. Love will most likely be the seventh or eighth man in the rotation, with him being the first forward off the bench as well.

Love had a huge appeal to go to the Heat because he’s able to play more minutes with Miami than other interested teams. As I outlined a couple of days ago, the Suns would have made some sense if Love was looking to win another ring rather than get more playing time. 

Heat: How does Kevin Love change Miami’s outlook for the postseason?

The Heat are also signing Cody Zeller, which will give them even more forward depth. While Zeller is more of a prototypical big than Love is, both of them should still have around the same impact on this team in terms of overall production.

This move doesn’t really change their outlook too much. While it does add a player who can play rotation minutes, this doesn’t improve their standing from being a likely play-in team. While their ceiling of making it to the second round is more likely due to this move, it doesn’t make Miami a top-four team in the East, much fewer championship contenders.

At this stage of his career, Love is little more than a rotation big with championship experience, which is exactly how he’ll factor in with Miami.

In 41 games played with the Cavs this season, Love averaged just over 8 points per game on 37 percent shooting.