With a new contract in hand, Kevin Love is headed back to Cleveland and general manager David Griffin thinks he will be stepping into a new role as well. Love re-signing with the Cavs came as a shock to many after seeing Love not fit in as well as he planned with the offense. Love was a focal point in the Timberwolves offense averaging 26.1 points during the 2013-2014 season. For Cleveland, Love’s point total dropped to 16.4 and often time seemed to only be used as a floor spacer and three-point shooter.
Cavs general manager David Griffin spoke to Jason Lloyd of Akron Beacon Journal, sharing details on how Love’s role in the offense will change.
“I think (Love) and Coach (David Blatt) have had a lot of conversations about that. He and (LeBron James) have had conversations about that. Kevin enables us to have somebody else carry the mail when LeBron sits down once in a while. (Kyrie Irving) was in a situation where he was clearly the one who was taking over when LeBron was out and I think we probably didn’t utilize Kevin enough to make Kyrie’s job easier. I think we have the ability to put him at the elbow and run offense through him a lot more than we did – some of the things he did really well in Minnesota.”
I felt Kevin Love would fall into a similar situation as LeBron’s former teammate Chris Bosh. Bosh’s scoring dropped from 24.0 points per game in Toronto to 18.7 point per game during season 1 in Miami. Giving up being the 1st scoring option and moving to a new team and becoming 3rd option isn’t always smooth. As LeBron has hinted before, if Love continues to trust the process and team buys in on sacrificing their number for the better of the team, the Cavs could be right back in the Finals and competing for the title for years to come.
HT: TheScore