Kevin Love, he of the 34-point quarter, does not regret his five-year deal
Kevin Love has the sort of security, technically, that LeBron James (signed through 2019) just wouldn’t understand. Kevin Durant (signed through 2018, but really 2017) wouldn’t either, nor would his Golden State teammate Stephen Curry (2017).
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Kevin Love is signed to a five-year deal to work for the Cleveland Cavaliers, through 2020. Love declined the chance to milk the NBA’s newest television deal and take advantage of the structural advantages that signing shorter contracts (for basketball and/or business reasons) provide in spades.
No, Love (who set the league on fire, briefly, in hitting for 34 first quarter points against the Trail Blazers on Wednesday night) made a point to sign the longest deal he could after hitting free agency in the summer of 2015 after coming off of a major shoulder injury. And though it may cost him chunks of millions as the years move along, he appears to be just fine with his choice to commit. From Jason Lloyd at the Akron Beacon Journal:
“I have thought about it, of course. But I don’t regret anything,” Love said. “Everybody in my position did the same thing when you look at [LaMarcus] Aldridge, DeAndre [Jordan] and Marc Gasol. Players like that who are max players went ahead and signed [long term].”
[…]
“When it’s your time [to sign], it’s your time. You’ve got to figure it out,” Love said. “Maybe the shoulder had something to do with it, but you’ve got to think about risk adversity. How much risk do you want to take? Knowing I could be with this team, locking in for five years, it was an easy choice.”
“The cap continues to go up,” Love said. “Hopefully, I’ll continue to stay healthy, continue to play at a high level and continue to win. I don’t regret it at all.”
One rarely regrets $113’ish million deals that pay out at an average of $22 million a year – including over $21.6 million for 2016-17. However, as we learned from LeBron James when he signed a pair of “two-year” contracts with the Cavaliers in 2014 and 2015, and from Durant when he decided to keep his options open with the same “two-year” deal last summer, there are ways to take chances on oneself while making millions upon millions more per season by simply re-upping with the incumbent team every summer to two-year deals with options after the first season.
Kevin Durant is currently on that route with his Golden State Warriors, and as a result his current two-year, $54.3 million contract could eventually turn into a massive year-by-year expenditure for the W’s that could land Durant (making $26.5 million this season) a deal that averages over $32.6 million once all is signed and done with.
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LeBron James seemed well on his way to committing to that plan upon signing short deals with the Cavaliers in 2014 and 2015, but instead of continuing the trend in 2016 the soon to-be 32-year old signed a three-year deal during the 2016 offseason that will make him the highest paid player in NBA history in 2017-18. Durant, soon, will likely supplant him as the league’s top earner as KD dives in on the escalating deals he’ll no doubt earn.
This leaves Love, a star upon entering the NBA in 2008, out of the mix somewhat. Yes, he’ll have an opt-out in 2019, but by then the salary cap bonanza (as the league and its players could not come up with a plan to smooth out the spiraling revenue bonus legally promised to the players) will have capped itself out, so to speak. The Cavs can sign him for heaps more cash, at (nearly) age 31 in 2019, but the options aren’t as secured as they would be for types like Durant or even an aging LeBron James when his contract runs out the same summer.
The issue for Love, even coming from a family that worked in NBA circles for years, is that nothing is ever truly “secured.”
Kevin Love spent his first six seasons with the Minnesota Timberwolves as they crashed through four different coaches and the disastrous reign of former general manager David Kahn. His first two seasons in Cleveland were paired with unending trade discussions, and questions regarding his fit with the team. Questions that, if we’re honest, remain to this day: Love scored just six points on 1-6 shooting following his 34-point bonanza on Wednesday night. Even at his record-setting peak, the team still has a way of turning him into a decoy at times. Lengthy times.
Love, following the game, goofed on the disparate turns:
On his way out of the locker room, one of the Cavs’ staffers tried handing Kevin Love the stat sheet from his historic 34-point first quarter as a thoughtful keepsake. Love had nowhere to carry it, however, so he left it on a chair and said he would get a copy another day after practice. “I can print out the second through fourth quarters instead if you want,” the staffer joked, poking fun at what was a rather dreary six points on 1 of 6 shooting for Love after the first quarter.
Love cracked up. “F— you,” he said and walked down the long corridor and out of Quicken Loans Arena.
Jason Lloyd, rooted in with these Cavaliers through all of it, noticed a difference:
What seems like a rather innocuous moment actually illustrates quite well Love’s comfort in Cleveland, in the locker room and in this system. No longer is he guarded with the media or even his teammates. No longer is he answering questions about his fit, addressing the silliness over his absence from group photos or participating in the passive-aggressive jabs back and forth with LeBron James over MVP candidates and fit in/fit out tweets. All of it has been washed away by championship champagne.
Ask LeBron, who hopped on Instagram to honor the occasion:
A photo posted by LeBron James (@kingjames) on Nov 23, 2016 at 7:42pm PST
Or J.R. Smith. Who, via USA Today’s Alysha Tsuji, could not help but marvel at a record that he’s probably considering taking a shot at one of these nights:
"PLEASE tell me we're about to talk about Kev!"@TheRealJRSmith was ancy to rave over his teammate @kevinlove's start. #CavsBlazers pic.twitter.com/9p6ZOJQCNg
— FOX Sports Ohio (@FOXSportsOH) November 24, 2016
Smith’s advice to love, to FOX Sports Ohio?
“Keep shooting. Wherever you at in your mind mentally, stay there. We need that, and he needs that – for his confidence and for our team’s confidence. We had a bad couple practices since we had the days off, but I mean, he’s shooting the hell out of the ball.”
He was. For one quarter, at least.
(I know, I know: “[bleep] you, Kelly.” This is probably why he stopped following me on Twitter. That, and all my bad Mike Love jokes.)
Following the outburst, Kevin Love is working at 21.8 points per game with the Cavs in 2016-17 in only 32.2 minutes of play per night, shooting 44 percent from the field and 37 percent from long range. He’s averaging 10.8 rebounds and putting up gaudy stats on a team that middling in terms of pace and often lacking (understandably so, considering the myriad and frightening options available to the league’s third-best offense) in terms of plays called for Love.
He’s putting up a monster, All-Star season, and he may not make the team. In a league loaded with talent, Kevin Love might continually miss out on All-Star berths year by year in Cleveland due to Cavalier fatigue, limited minutes and shots, and the unending and incorrect taint that painted him as a big-numbers, crappy-team sort of guy in Minnesota.
Which is a shame, but Love ain’t hurting.
A whole lot can happen to this country between 2016 and 2020, but at the very least Kevin Love will find comfort in the fact that he is owed a whole lot of guaranteed money from the Cleveland Cavaliers. Tuesday night’s outburst, whether it comes in one record-breaking opening period, or a sustained string of silliness throughout the contest, helps remind us that he’s certainly earned as much.
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Kelly Dwyer is an editor for Ball Don’t Lie on Yahoo Sports. Have a tip? Email him at KDonhoops@yahoo.com or follow him on Twitter!
