In These NBA Finals, Kevin Love Has Nothing to Lose

In the 2016 NBA Finals, Cleveland Cavaliers forward Kevin Love has nothing to lose and everything to gain.

Image via USA TODAY Sports/Tim Fuller

Kevin Love could have been a Warrior. It was never all that close to happening—and who knows what kind of butterfly effect a Love-for-Klay-Thompson deal would have had on the NBA landscape—but as Love prepares for his first NBA Finals against those same Warriors, it’s neat to think about anyway. Some people thought the Warriors were dumb for not doing it, that Thompson could never be as good as Love. Reality, it seems, disagrees.

Yet here is Love, in the Finals for the first time in uniform. And while debates rage over whether LeBron James can cement his legacy or whether the Warriors can properly cap off the best regular season in NBA history, it’s perhaps Love who has the most to gain from a finals win.

The scapegoat stories are as good as written, someone somewhere undoubtedly has Crying Jordan Face Kevin Love loaded up in their drafts. ... All Love has to do is prove them wrong.

Let’s dispel with the LeBron nonsense (LeBronsense?) first. I’ve written on this before, but LeBron’s legacy is fine. He’s playing in his sixth straight finals, and has maintained a level of excellence over his 13-year career that’s simply staggering. Yes, he lost in the finals last year. But he also averaged 35.8 points, 13.3 rebounds and 8.8 assists while playing 45-plus minutes per game. It was a superhuman effort by a superhuman, one that fell just two games short. Yes, yes, Michael Jordan never lost in the finals, but he never had to do it without Scottie Pippen and Dennis Rodman/Horace Grant either.

The truth of it is simply this: No one wins a finals by themselves. The second-leading scorer for the Cavaliers in last year’s Finals was center Timofey Mozgov, at 14 points per game—and he only played 28 minutes a game. This was somewhat reminiscent of the 2007 finals, when the Cavaliers’s second-leading scorer was Drew Gooden, at 12.8 per. Those Cavaliers were completely overmatched, swept by the Spurs, but the general premise was the same: LeBron James against the world.

If James is to break his three-year championship drought, if he’s to bring a title to The Land, he’ll need help. And much of it will have to come from his All-Star sidekicks, Kyrie Irving and Love. Irving is on the cover of Sports Illustrated. Love isn’t. But his performance might be more crucial in the end. To borrow Paul Pierce’s phrase, this is why they brought him there.

Love has nothing to lose and everything to gain. People are already pointing to him as the weakest link before the series even starts. He’s got a max contract and minimal expectations. No one thinks he needs to be that 26/12 guy he was in Minnesota. He just has to, as LeBron once said, fit in and be a part of something special. Grab rebounds, stay in front of (or at least in the general vicinity of) your man, hit shots. Sling outlet passes. Be the second—or third—best player on the team. Don’t get kicked in the balls.

Love should want more, of course. And this is a perfect series for him to get it. His ineffectiveness guarding the screen-and-roll has been pointed out again and again, usually using this play, one that he’s likely watched more than any of us. Hopefully he’s learned something. And it’s not like the Cavaliers acquired him for his defensive prowess. An up-and-down game should get him plenty of looks, both on the perimeter and in the post, where he’s been quite effective in these playoffs.

And if anything beyond “complete liability” is a bonus, why not think big? Why not Kevin Love, NBA Finals MVP? Is that any more ridiculous than Andre Iguodala winning it last year, or Kawhi Leonard the year before that? (Well, yes in the sense that each of them won it primarily for their defense, but still.) If Love gets hot, and LeBron keeps finding him—which we all know he will—he’s certainly capable of piling up points. Think of James Worthy winning it in 1988, for instance.

Again, Kevin Love has nothing to lose. The scapegoat stories are as good as written, someone somewhere undoubtedly has Crying Jordan Face Kevin Love loaded up in their drafts. The hot take cannon is loaded with “blame the loser” takes. They’re easy, they’re obvious. All Love has to do is prove them wrong.

 

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