The Kevin Love Situation Could Potentially Be A Big Problem For The NBA

(The Athletic) - Love was fined $1,000 by the Cavs for an outburst on the bench on Dec. 31 in Toronto, sources said, and disagreed with the fine. He was spotted by cameras slapping chairs on the Cavaliers bench away from the team huddle in the third quarter of the blowout (see video at bottom). He asked a Cavs coach to take him out of the game so he could cool down. During the next timeout, when a coach asked what was wrong, Love said he didn’t like how selfish the first unit was playing, sources said.

Saturday’s exchange between Love and Altman was not the first. At the end of last season, Love raised his voice toward the general manager and Altman threatened to fine him. Sources said they heard Love say, “Go ahead. I have plenty of money.”

It was Altman who signed Love to a four-year, $120 million extension in the summer of 2018, just after LeBron James left as a free agent. But at the time of the signing, the front office, including Altman, told Love the franchise intended to try to compete for the playoffs, rather than rebuild. And what has transpired has been two seasons of just that — a total rebuild in the wake of the LeBron era. The Cavs entered Saturday’s game with a 10-24 record.

OK so there's a lot to digest here with Kevin Love and his situation with the Cavs. Before we get into all that though I have to give credit where credit it due. The line of "Go ahead. I have plenty of money" as a response to your GM threatening to fine you is some Grade A stuff. There were rumors about that exit meeting blow out so Shams pretty much confirmed that, but what do you say in response to that if you're Altman? I mean all you can really do is just eat that L. You just gave Kevin Love $120M, a fine to him means nothing. So if we're just looking at that response, Love deserves a round of applause.

But this whole situation? Grow the fuck up. Let's just go back in time for a moment to 2017, you know the summer when CLE traded Kyrie Irving for an injured Isaiah Thomas and a lottery pick. By this time it was pretty well known that LeBron was going to leave CLE, let's not pretend like that was a secret or wasn't planned well ahead of time. Everyone knew entering the 2017-18 season that it was going to be LeBron's final year in CLE. Did that stop Kevin Love from signing that massive extension that summer? Sure didn't. He put his name on the dotted line on July 24th, 2018. LeBron signed with the Lakers on July 1st. So, the Cavs had already traded Kyrie, and LeBron had already left before Kevin Love decided to commit to CLE. What exactly did he think was going to happen? And I don't care if there are reports that the organization would try and compete and that's why he signed. Yeah fucking right. Does Kevin Love have eyes? He's not a stupid person by any means, there's no way in hell he sat there and thought about going elsewhere until CLE told him they would try. No chance. He saw his opportunity for a massive payday, took it, and figured he could just force his way off a shitty team like every other star player. 

That's all this is. Teams tell players one thing all the time and then do the opposite. There is nothing in the contract I imagine that says if you sign this max deal, we promise to try. What it does say is that you are expected to play to what you agree to. If a team wants to trade you, that's life in the NBA. Your reward is a massive amount of money. It's extremely soft that Kevin Love is now demanding a trade to a good team in the FIRST YEAR of his max extension. It's right out of the Paul George playbook and that was soft as hell too when that whole thing went down. It's become pretty clear that these guys want to have their cake and eat it too. They want the big contract that comes with being a franchise player and leader, but have no interest in ya know, being a franchise player and a leader. 

Now if you're the Cavs, you're kind of stuck. Is anyone going to give up legit assets for four more years of Kevin Love at like $30M a year until he's 35? What "contender" is in a position to make a move like that? Maybe POR, but I wouldn't exactly call them a contender, plus what can they really offer? This whole thing would have me terrified as a MIN fan, because their franchise player also is in Year 1 of his massive extension that no one forced him to sign. He knew how shitty they would be when he signed it and they as expected, kind of stink. If he sees George get out, and then Love gets out, what's to stop him from doing the same? These teams that are not free agent destinations losing their franchise max players early in their deals is a big time problem for the league in my opinion. The whole idea of teams being able to pay more to keep their own players suddenly means nothing if they are being forced to trade that player a year in. How can small market teams survive like that? They can't.

So no, I do not feel bad for Kevin Love that he's on a team that stinks and will most likely continue to stink for the majority of his max deal. That's how the cookie crumbles and he knew that, he just wanted the bag. Unless they can get an overpayment for Love which probably won't happen, I tell him to deal with it.