Cleveland Cavaliers: Is Kevin Love an immovable asset?

Kevin Love has slowly transformed into an immovable asset for the Cleveland Cavaliers.

When the Cleveland Cavaliers signed Kevin Love to a four-year, $120 million contract extension in 2018, the thought was that the team was making a solid investment. Especially after the Cavs lost LeBron James (who signed with the Los Angeles Lakers in free agency), keeping Love in the fold as Cleveland began a retooling of the roster seemed like a smart move.

However, since then, the Cavs’ retooling quickly became a full-blown rebuild and now Love seems lost and out of place in Cleveland. And after another rough, injury-plagued season, Love has now become somewhat of an afterthought in the league and as a negative asset for the Cavs.

If Cleveland wants to trade him this offseason, they will likely have to attach an additional asset to get another team to take on the final two years of his contract.

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Love is not a player that is viewed as a positive asset at this point – mostly due to the injuries that he’s had to deal with over the last two seasons – and he has some making up to do in terms of his overall reputation in the league. Again, mostly due to his injury concerns.

When Love is healthy and playing at the level in which he can, he can still be a productive player in the league. Especially in the pace-and-space era, he’s a big that can stretch the floor and rebound well.

Any team that is looking for help in the frontcourt would generally be interested in his services. The injuries have made all that somewhat confusing, though.

Let’s also remember that Love is only 32 years old. Even though it’s felt like he’s been in the league for ages, he’s still technically in the productive years of his career. Whether he can find the right change of scenery that would rejuvenate his game is another question entirely.

That’s probably what he needs. Love has been in Cleveland for seven years – more than he was in Minnesota (which is unreal). And for the past three years, Love has been playing for virtually nothing in Cleveland (as they have pivotal to a rebuild).

There’s no question that Love needs a change of scenery, a fresh start for the twilight portion of his career. There’s also no arguing that Cleveland would likely be willing to move on from Love at the same time. However, there’s no guarantee that the perfect storm will come together and that Love will get his fresh start, and that Cleveland would get a good return on Love via the trade market.

Something has to give. Because Love has slowly regressed to an immovable asset, either Love is going to have to agree to buyout and give Cleveland some of his contract guaranteed money back or Cleveland is going to have to part ways with an additional asset to get Love off the books via trade.

At this point, I’m not sure which side is willing to budge. Though, that’s kind of the curse of the immovable asset in the NBA.