Kevin Love’s Cleveland Cavaliers career was in jeopardy for the past two seasons. Love was the only star player from the 2014-2018 Cavaliers to actually stay with the team after 2018, signing a massive contract extension to stay with the team. However, as the team fell out of contention, Love seemed disengaged on the court and had injury woes to deal with.
This season, the Cavaliers have rebounded and made the playoffs for the first time without LeBron James since the mid-90s. Love is one of the few players to return to the playoffs on this Cavs team, but he isn’t the bonafide starter anymore, coming off the bench to facilitate a big-man lineup of Jarrett Allen and Evan Mobley.
Love recently spoke about how it felt to be moved to the bench and what his conversations were like with coach J.B. Bickerstaff. He also detailed how he grew into the role and is now comfortable with it.
Kevin Love (@kevinlove) spoke to @SIChrismannix on the fun he’s having in Cleveland, if he thinks LeBron would come back and more https://t.co/cDvU4xM5tK
— Sports Illustrated (@SInow) April 5, 2022
“J.B., he’s like, ‘I want you to play free,’” says Love. “You have the green light … so for me, there was no pushback. And from then on, it took me about, I’d say four to six weeks to really feel right and secure and find how I was going to play within our group and different matchups and who I was going to be playing with. I’d say around December is where I found myself within that sixth man role. And then it just grew from there.”
Love elaborated on the same as well.
“Coming off the bench, I think it can add a lot of time to my career,” says Love. “I feel great. My body feels great. Mentally I feel great. In this league, if you can rebound and you can shoot, you can basically play for as long as you want. I have no [plans on] slowing down or stepping away anytime soon.”
The Cavaliers were eliminated from being a top-six seed today, as injuries caused them to slide out of the top 6 and into the play-in. However, they are guaranteed their play-in spot and will hope to make a surprise playoff run, if they can get through their early opponents.
