Could he fit in LA?
Cleveland Cavaliers power forward Kevin Love, in the midst of his ninth season with the team, is nearing a contract buyout agreement with the club, sources inform Shams Charania and Jason Lloyd of The Athletic. The Miami Heat, who haven’t had an actual power forward-sized power forward all year, are already said to be in the running for the former five-time All-Star.
Could a reunion between Love and his former Cavs colleague LeBron James possibly be in the cards? The duo did appear in four straight NBA Finals together, from the 2014-15 season through 2017-18 (winning in 2016), after which James departed for LA.
Joining your Los Angeles Lakers may not make a ton of sense for Love as a fit, given that the team has a cadre of talented young bigs now, and Love would have to fight for playing time.
Prior to team VP of basketball operations Rob Pelinka’s series of trades in the weeks leading up to this year’s trade deadline, Love could have made sense as a floor-spacing option who could shore up the team’s depth. Now, however, Love would be competing for bench minutes alongside Mo Bamba, Rui Hachimura, and perhaps Wenyen Gabriel (a much better defender than Love, but a much more limited offensive player), behind the team’s new starting frontcourt of Jarred Vanderbilt and Anthony Davis.
Love, 34, also may want to join a club team that’s more of a clear championship contender. This LA franchise could be really good, but they may have too much ground to make up this season to even get out of the first round of the playoffs.
At 37-32, the Lakers currently occupy the 13th seed in the Western Conference. That said, LA is just 3.5 games south of the West’s sixth seed, the 31-29 Minnesota Timberwolves, former stomping ground of new LA additions D’Angelo Russell, Malik Beasley, and Jarred Vanderbilt (Vanderbilt was dealt from Minnesota to the Utah Jazz in the 2022 offseason, before Utah flipped him to Los Angeles near the deadline last week).
Given how great Los Angeles looked last night in its lopsided 120-102 defeat of the New Orleans Pelicans, it certainly seems capable of going on a little run to rocket up the standings. Would that be enough to attract Kevin Love, knowing he could get a bigger role on a team like Miami, or could probably hold some appeal to contending teams in more need of shooting depth on the bench, like the Suns or the Milwaukee Bucks? Time will tell.
In terms of the remaining buyout market options that Los Angeles could consider, adding current Washington Wizards combo guard Will Barton (who has yet to be officially bought out), a solid point-of-attack defender who can blanket opponents along the perimeter.
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