SameOldDrew wrote:Based on talent, we'd be committing felony theft of the Knicks in that trade. Love's weaknesses as a player have been exposed in Cleveland, but he is still a very good player.
Still, adding any veteran to this talented core needs to be done carefully in terms of chemistry. I always thought Love came off as a little whiny and selfish, and he became even more unlikeable the closer it got to the end. I wouldn't want him on the team today partly because of my concern he'd disrupt the team's chemistry.
I do agree that Love's value is very depressed right now, in part because of the rumors about the Cavs' lack of chemistry with Love. But I also think there are two other factors. One, he's really faded in these playoffs. Two, the consensus seems to be building that his defensive weakness means that he's a liability as the league seems to be going smaller. Love's 3 point shooting used to lead people to say he was a prototype of the future 4 in the NBA. Now Green or Kawhi are the future, and Love is the past even before we reached the future he was supposed to represent. This is similar to the critique of Jahlil Okafor. To some degree, I think this theory in both cases (Love and Okafor) is correct. But I also think the consensus narrative that Love's game itself is a thing of the past is in part just that, a narrative. It's a story we tell ourselves to make sense of what we're seeing. And what we're seeing is a pretty good player, playing pretty bad.
I just think it's a value thing. If you can get Love for a reasonable price, you need to explore. Look, many on this board have seriously talked about signing Biyombo for $17MM per season. Love makes a shade over that. So if I have to choose between the two guys, it really isn't close. Even with Loves defensive issues, he is still a light-years better player than many of the guys we have talked about signing on this board for near-max deals. He is no longer considered the top PF in the game, but he is certainly a better player than he is made out to be here.
It's an interesting deal for sure, and would sort of be a slap in the face to the Cavs front office as they'd have basically exchanged Andrew Wiggins for the #5 pick a couple years later. (oh, and it helped us get Towns)
Ultimately, I wouldn't do it though. Love's production comes when he's a high volume focal point of the offense. He is a guy that needs to be on the ball to be effective most of the time. This team has gotten a lot more versatile offensively since Love's left, and I don't think there's enough balls to go around with our weapons now in combination with Kevin Love. Additionally, he's not a good defender for anything but rebounds. Interesting scenario nonetheless.
