Woj on ESPN: Cavs listening to offers for Kevin Love

[goCeltics]

marcus, kanter, langford porier works, great deal

[gouki88]

marcus, kanter, langford porier works, great deal

Not for the Celtics

[LilRip]

Hayward for Love is interesting but makes no sense for Cleveland. A 3rd team needs to get involved imo.

FWIW, I think Love fits better on this team better than Hayward. Sure, Hayward is a better defender but you’re probably starting Smart anyway. Acquiring Love means your best lineup consists of:

Kemba-Smart-Tatum-Brown-Love

That’s really good as you have shooting and playmaking everywhere. You also don’t get bullied for rebounds because K Love is a terrific defensive rebounder.

Hayward definitely brings other things to the table that K Love can’t, which I feel like is why so many here are balking at the thought of it.

[tazzmaniac]

It hurts, but Smart, Kanter, Langford, and Poirier is enough (edit: salary wise). Add in the Memphis pick?

Gives us a starting five of Walker-Brown-Tatum-Hayward-Love with Theis, Williams, Williams, Wanamaker, Edwards, Waters, Ojeleye, and Green off the bench.

Plus I think we are right there with any veteran buyouts.

Love playing the 5?  Defending Embiid?  Defending the paint against Giannis?  We'll get slaughtered.  Also losing Smart's defense.  Really odd proposal from one called DefenseWinsChamps. 

[mrceltics2013]

Anyone advocating for Love clearly isn’t caring about winning games. He plays 0 defense!!

[LilRip]

It hurts, but Smart, Kanter, Langford, and Poirier is enough (edit: salary wise). Add in the Memphis pick?

Gives us a starting five of Walker-Brown-Tatum-Hayward-Love with Theis, Williams, Williams, Wanamaker, Edwards, Waters, Ojeleye, and Green off the bench.

Plus I think we are right there with any veteran buyouts.

Love playing the 5?  Defending Embiid?  Defending the paint against Giannis?  We'll get slaughtered.  Also losing Smart's defense.  Really odd proposal from one called DefenseWinsChamps.

To be fair, who defends Embiid now? And defends Giannis?

[Somebody]

It hurts, but Smart, Kanter, Langford, and Poirier is enough (edit: salary wise). Add in the Memphis pick?

Gives us a starting five of Walker-Brown-Tatum-Hayward-Love with Theis, Williams, Williams, Wanamaker, Edwards, Waters, Ojeleye, and Green off the bench.

Plus I think we are right there with any veteran buyouts.

Love playing the 5?  Defending Embiid?  Defending the paint against Giannis?  We'll get slaughtered.  Also losing Smart's defense.  Really odd proposal from one called DefenseWinsChamps.

To be fair, who defends Embiid now? And defends Giannis?

Kanter and Theis for Embiid, and a combination of Smart/Brown/Tatum/Hayward/Semi/Grant/Theis/Robert for Giannis. I'd be much more confident with our current slew of options than Love lol.

[Moranis]

It hurts, but Smart, Kanter, Langford, and Poirier is enough (edit: salary wise). Add in the Memphis pick?

Gives us a starting five of Walker-Brown-Tatum-Hayward-Love with Theis, Williams, Williams, Wanamaker, Edwards, Waters, Ojeleye, and Green off the bench.

Plus I think we are right there with any veteran buyouts.

Love playing the 5?  Defending Embiid?  Defending the paint against Giannis?  We'll get slaughtered.  Also losing Smart's defense.  Really odd proposal from one called DefenseWinsChamps.

To be fair, who defends Embiid now? And defends Giannis?

Kanter and Theis for Embiid, and a combination of Smart/Brown/Tatum/Hayward/Semi/Grant/Theis/Robert for Giannis. I'd be much more confident with our current slew of options than Love lol.

All of those guys, except for Hayward, would still be on the team in the hypothetical Love for Hayward swap.

[mrceltics2013]

It hurts, but Smart, Kanter, Langford, and Poirier is enough (edit: salary wise). Add in the Memphis pick?

Gives us a starting five of Walker-Brown-Tatum-Hayward-Love with Theis, Williams, Williams, Wanamaker, Edwards, Waters, Ojeleye, and Green off the bench.

Plus I think we are right there with any veteran buyouts.

Love playing the 5?  Defending Embiid?  Defending the paint against Giannis?  We'll get slaughtered.  Also losing Smart's defense.  Really odd proposal from one called DefenseWinsChamps.

To be fair, who defends Embiid now? And defends Giannis?

Smart and Kanter... but Kanter will not be able to slowdown either one of them anymore THIS SEASON.

[Somebody]

It hurts, but Smart, Kanter, Langford, and Poirier is enough (edit: salary wise). Add in the Memphis pick?

Gives us a starting five of Walker-Brown-Tatum-Hayward-Love with Theis, Williams, Williams, Wanamaker, Edwards, Waters, Ojeleye, and Green off the bench.

Plus I think we are right there with any veteran buyouts.

Love playing the 5?  Defending Embiid?  Defending the paint against Giannis?  We'll get slaughtered.  Also losing Smart's defense.  Really odd proposal from one called DefenseWinsChamps.

To be fair, who defends Embiid now? And defends Giannis?

Kanter and Theis for Embiid, and a combination of Smart/Brown/Tatum/Hayward/Semi/Grant/Theis/Robert for Giannis. I'd be much more confident with our current slew of options than Love lol.

All of those guys, except for Hayward, would still be on the team in the hypothetical Love for Hayward swap.

Read the proposed trade that was quoted in the post.

[mrceltics2013]

It hurts, but Smart, Kanter, Langford, and Poirier is enough (edit: salary wise). Add in the Memphis pick?

Gives us a starting five of Walker-Brown-Tatum-Hayward-Love with Theis, Williams, Williams, Wanamaker, Edwards, Waters, Ojeleye, and Green off the bench.

Plus I think we are right there with any veteran buyouts.

Love playing the 5?  Defending Embiid?  Defending the paint against Giannis?  We'll get slaughtered.  Also losing Smart's defense.  Really odd proposal from one called DefenseWinsChamps.

To be fair, who defends Embiid now? And defends Giannis?

Kanter and Theis for Embiid, and a combination of Smart/Brown/Tatum/Hayward/Semi/Grant/Theis/Robert for Giannis. I'd be much more confident with our current slew of options than Love lol.

All of those guys, except for Hayward, would still be on the team in the hypothetical Love for Hayward swap.

Love for Hayward swap is a disaster trade. Love is seriously a marginal upgrade over what we already have if he’s even that. I think people advocating for love need to rewatch the Cs vs Cavs game and see what he does on D. Plus have y’all seen his stats? He’s shooting like 44% from the field and you want him to play Center??? He don’t even play Center now lol. Lastly all everyone is going to do is complain how often he’s OUT THE DANG LINE UP!!!! The best ability is availability Especially at center!! We can afford Hawyward to be gone because of the other players we have on our team.

[jambr380]

It hurts, but Smart, Kanter, Langford, and Poirier is enough (edit: salary wise). Add in the Memphis pick?

Gives us a starting five of Walker-Brown-Tatum-Hayward-Love with Theis, Williams, Williams, Wanamaker, Edwards, Waters, Ojeleye, and Green off the bench.

Plus I think we are right there with any veteran buyouts.

Love playing the 5?  Defending Embiid?  Defending the paint against Giannis?  We'll get slaughtered.  Also losing Smart's defense.  Really odd proposal from one called DefenseWinsChamps.

To be fair, who defends Embiid now? And defends Giannis?

Kanter and Theis for Embiid, and a combination of Smart/Brown/Tatum/Hayward/Semi/Grant/Theis/Robert for Giannis. I'd be much more confident with our current slew of options than Love lol.

All of those guys, except for Hayward, would still be on the team in the hypothetical Love for Hayward swap.

Love for Hayward swap is a disaster trade. Love is seriously a marginal upgrade over what we already have if he’s even that. I think people advocating for love need to rewatch the Cs vs Cavs game and see what he does on D. Plus have y’all seen his stats? He’s shooting like 44% from the field and you want him to play Center??? He don’t even play Center now lol. Lastly all everyone is going to do is complain how often he’s OUT THE DANG LINE UP!!!! The best ability is availability Especially at center!! We can afford Hayward to be gone because of the other players we have on our team.

I'm not advocating for the deal, but your reasoning isn't sound here. If we did a straight-up trade of Hayward for Love, we would also be able to withstand Love missing time since we would literally have the same exact players to cover for him as if we had Hayward.

[Vox_Populi]

Anyone advocating for Love clearly isn’t caring about winning games. He plays 0 defense!!

He's checked out of Cavs games, he's a better defender than he's shown. And to be fair, Marc Gasol had too for Memphis before Toronto gave him a reason to play hard again.

But just in general, from a basketball standpoint, I don't really care to have Kevin Love on my team.

[Celtics4ever]

Love for Hayward swap is a disaster trade. Love is seriously a marginal upgrade over what we already have if he’s even that. I think people advocating for love need to rewatch the Cs vs Cavs game and see what he does on D. Plus have y’all seen his stats? He’s shooting like 44% from the field and you want him to play Center??? He don’t even play Center now lol. Lastly all everyone is going to do is complain how often he’s OUT THE DANG LINE UP!!!! The best ability is availability Especially at center!! We can afford Hawyward to be gone because of the other players we have on our team.

Not to mention Love is soft as wet kleenex.  Just say "no" to bad trades!

[DefenseWinsChamps]

Love for Hayward swap is a disaster trade. Love is seriously a marginal upgrade over what we already have if he’s even that. I think people advocating for love need to rewatch the Cs vs Cavs game and see what he does on D. Plus have y’all seen his stats? He’s shooting like 44% from the field and you want him to play Center??? He don’t even play Center now lol. Lastly all everyone is going to do is complain how often he’s OUT THE DANG LINE UP!!!! The best ability is availability Especially at center!! We can afford Hawyward to be gone because of the other players we have on our team.

Not to mention Love is soft as wet kleenex.  Just say "no" to bad trades!

Few things about that. I don't want the trade, but we don't need to exaggerate to prove our point.

1. Love's defense against us in the recent game wasn't terrible. In fact, I thought he did a good job isolating pick-and-roll ball-handlers in the no-mans land. He made them uncomfortable enough to not challenge him at the rim, but he got them off the three point line, forcing a lot of mid-range misses.
2. Love's low shooting percentage is only low because half his attempts are 3s, which is really fine. That's the modern NBA big. He's a stretch player that would open the court for our other creators-that's a valuable thing.
3. He does play center.

There's no need to bash a player--it actually undermines the point you are trying to make.

Hayward is the team's best facilitator (although Walker is pretty good). Trading him for Love has never really made sense. It's not even value, and Cleveland wouldn't even want him. Plus, he really hasn't been good long enough to completely rehab his value, meaning you don't really get fair value back for a player of his talent and impact.

I think the Smart-Kanter-Poirier-Langford trade makes more sense, but I still value continuity over the value that Love would give. I love Smart, but I don't think he is a reliable offensive player. His defense is stellar and really special, but I'm not sure we can't make up for most of his defense through Brown, Tatum, Hayward, and Grant Williams. We have really, really good two-way wings. Maybe they aren't all-NBA defensive wings, but they are really high level, which means what Smart brings isn't as necessary.

Still, like I said, I don't think I'd do the trade.