Cleveland Cavaliers veteran forward Kevin Love is targeting a mid-January return to the court following foot surgery, according to a report from Joe Vardon of The Athletic.
When he returns to the rotation, the Cavaliers plan to play Love, despite the fact that they are clearly in tanking rebuilding mode after starting the season with a 5-18 record. However, should the right offer present itself, the Cavs might be willing to move Love.
From Vardon:
"Love, who is 30 and has missed at least 20 games due to injury in the last three seasons, wants to play. Like the rest of the team's veterans, he was upset by the turn in direction of the franchise and spent some extended time away for the first few weeks following surgery, but wants to stay in Cleveland and has not asked for a trade. However, he sees a scenario in which he could be traded, if the Cavs wanted and were able to acquire a package of picks, younger players and tradeable contracts.
Cavs officials, speaking on background, said there has been no discussion of trading Love and they want him to be on the court with rookie Collin Sexton. Rival league executives point to Love's contract — he's making $24.2 million this season — and his injuries as roadblocks to him being moved."
Love inked a fresh four-year, $120 million contract extension with the Cavs over the offseason; under the condition that the team would remain competitive.
"The only thing I didn't want was I didn't want to be a team that was going to tank or be not competitive," Love said last month, via cleveland.com. "I've been a part of that for a couple of years (in Minnesota) and then we started to build something. I wanted this to be a building year and still be competitive. That was my only hold up about the whole thing. They had told me they didn't want to take a huge step back.
"I mean, obviously losing LeBron (James) you know what is going to happen with that, but I wanted to be part of something where we could continue to strive for all these banners up here and build something for the next several years."
While Love will not be in uniform, the rest of his Cavaliers teammates will be back at it on Wednesday night when they host the Golden State Warriors at Quicken Loans Arena in an NBA Finals rematch, of sorts, (7 p.m. ET -- Watch on FuboTV with the NBA League Pass extension ).
Clearly, Love can't be too happy with the state of the Cavs at this point in time. But, for what it's worth, Cavs coach Larry Drew is excited about Love's return to the rotation and thinks that the team will be [much] better with Love back in action.
"I think we'll be a lot better," Drew said. "Kevin has been our go-to guy, and we haven't had that all season long. … And then Kevin gives us, not taking anything away from our other big guys, but he's our No. 1 post priority and we haven't had that all year. That makes it tough.
"With a healthy Kevin Love in our lineup we're a much better basketball team."
In the four games that he has played for the Cavs this season, Love has averaged 19 points, 13.5 rebounds, and 3.5 assists.
