I said it, and I will say it again

 The last few weeks have been rough emotionally for Cavs fans, big wins against stripped bare teams followed by the our guard rotation collapsing in a very short span.  With Rubio out for the year two of the Cavs top three guards are done for the season and the Cavs three game losing streak which was broken last night started when Darius Garland entered the protocols.  

Beneath the surface though there are the stirrings of a forbidden passion, both wondrous and fragile, that we risk shattering even with the merest whisper of acknowledgement.  I have been hurt before, I know the inevitable and I don’t care because Fuck you and your cynacism.  Fuck you and your qualifiers, fuck all that shit because mother fucking Kevin Love is back.  

Fuck you.  Not ‘he’s found his role as a mentor, high IQ guy off the bench’.  

Fuck you again.  Not ‘He should be a starter, but you know, injuries’

Fuck you once more.  Not ‘He looks like All-Star Kevin Love who was the third banana on the greatest title team in history’.

Fuck you one last time, because I am saying it.  Love has played his last 350 minutes at an MVP level.  Per 36 mins his numbers since the first of December have been 29/12/3.7 against 2 TOs on >70% TS.  Is he running insanely hot from 3?  Yep.  49% on his last 122 attempts, but like I said earlier- fuck you.  Even regressing his 3pt shooting to his career average the per 36 still comes out to an All-NBA level of 24.5/12/3.7.  

So what?  We know who Love is and he isn’t going to have some sudden leap as a 33 year old and become a dominant offensive player.  

I left a word out of that last line, it should have ended with ‘again’, because Kevin was, at one point, a really good offensive player.  Not doing it for you?  How about one of the best offensive players in the league.  Still too cagey?  Fine.  When Love was an offensive fulcrum in Minnesota he was one of the 10 best offensive players in the NBA.  Full stop.  His last three full seasons in Minnesota he was 4th, 4th and 3rd in OWS, and 4th, 3rd and 2nd in OBPM.  In OLEBRON he merely came in 30th, 8th and 6th those seasons.  

It is simple to understand why 2nd team All-NBA Kevin Love disappeared in 2014 when he joined the Cavs and shifted roles and importance, but there is still the question of why it has taken 4 seasons to rediscover this impact level.  

The first factor is clearly health, and Love is moving better than we have seen him in a long time, but even during the ‘19/’20 season where he played almost 1800 mins and produced well there weren’t 300 mins bursts of elite production.  A 30/9/4 game that year against Detroit would be sandwiched between a 12/3 and a 17/8 game, and despite playing a ton more minutes that season he never managed the 5 straight 20+ point game stretch that he is currently on (topping out at 4 in ‘19/’20, 2 in ‘18/’19 and he was never able to string together even that many last year, with only 2 games breaking 20 in his 25).  

I don’t have a full answer for this yet, but one factor is the rise of Jarret Allen.  Despite the near constant cries to make Love a small ball center he has always been at his best next to another big who is an offensive threat be it Pekovic in Minnesota, Allen this year or even Mozgov in ‘15/’16.  A center capable of drawing defensive attention allows Kevin the space to exploit his primary advantage, which is his broad array of skills.  Obviously having a center that consistently occupies the biggest defender opens up Love’s ability to post up smaller players, but it also gives him a mismatch to exploit with his passing when that Center has his own mismatch in a way that just doesn’t work when Tristan Thompson is your 2nd big.  

The opposite end of the team construction has also shifted toward pass first point guards in particular with the loss of Sexton, with even the 3rd and 4th string point guards being decent passers.  Love’s versatility, willingness to move and make decisions, and generally high IQ have always made him a good match with this style of guard.  Even last year when he wasn’t ever fully healthy the Cavs were ridiculously efficient in the handful of minutes that Love and Delly were on the court together.  

These two fit changes have allowed Love to essentially invert his shot profile from his early career.  Instead of being a bully under the basket using strength and footwork to generate closer looks with a good number of threes mixed in he now has started amplifying his three point attempts and with attacks on smaller players in the post mixed in as the change of pace.  His 3pta per 100 this season is 7th in the league right now and well above his 2nd best season and almost double his career average.  This has been a steady upward climb since Lebron’s second exit from Cleveland, with each of the last 4 seasons averaging more 3pta per 100 than his highest season next to Lebron and this season is currently roughly 40% more 3s per possession than his highest year with LBJ.  

One might assume that his spike in 3s would diminish his free throw attempts which are normally associated with shots at the basket but Love’s willingness to chuck at a high volume has fused with his pump fake game to create a split second no win decision for defenders closing out.  Leave my feet and risk the foul on the 3 pointer or the pump and side step or the pump and drive* or give up an open look to a good shooter who will let it fly from anywhere.  

As a result of these pump fakes Love has consistently gotten defenders in bad spots with few options, and he has almost as many free throw attempts this season as he does 2 point attempts and actually more (66 to 52) since the start of December.  The splits are stark compared to his career averages, so far this year 20% of his points have come from the free throw line, 55% from made 3s and 25% from made 2s, while career wise he is 24%/30%/46%.  

There are other aspects of Love’s play which I think might have shifted.  His passing is being used more creatively to generate double threat positions for him consistently to my eyes, but that would take a more in depth breakdown which I would be willing to do later in the year if his play remains at this level and he remains on the floor.  Until then I am just going to enjoy Kevin Love’s play for as long as I can.

*Love’s dribble has always reminded me of a bear pawing at a deer carcass.