When LeBron left the Cavs panicked.
They gave Kevin Love a $120 million contract because they wanted to make sure they had at least one-star player left on the team.
Love happily took the money because no one else was going to give him $120 million.
It has been all downhill since then and now according to the Athletic they are throwing Collin Sexton under the bus.
Love is not sitting by his phone, anxious to see whether Sexton gets that extension offer, to decide how he’s going to conduct himself over the last two years of his contract. Various Cavs players still grow frustrated by the way Sexton dominates the ball, and opponents taunt them by saying during games, “you know he’s not going to pass you the ball.”
Over the last three years, they’ve watched or heard Love get into at least two shouting matches with Altman, embarrass Collin Sexton by taking the ball from him and then chucking it at Cedi Osman’s feet (during a game), slamming the bench at then-coach John Beilein, slapping the ball at a ref, but in bounds, so the Raptors can scoop it up and bang a 3 and then refusing to shoot in a game in which he played 22 minutes. Love isn’t punished for any of it and that sends a terrible message to the rest of the group. It’s a culture ruiner.
For the younger, impressionable crowd, the Cavs should be more forceful with Love if or when he misbehaves. They can’t pay him to not play, as we’ve discussed, but a public reprimand, a fine or a suspension is necessary.
The Cavs should consider themselves lucky that LeBron came back and got them that one championship.
They might not get another one for another 50 years.
Flip the page for the video of Kevin Love’s downfall.