NBA: Los Angeles Lakers at Minnesota Timberwolves
NBA: Los Angeles Lakers at Minnesota Timberwolves Reuters

Barring any complications, Kevin Love is on his way to the Cleveland Cavaliers to join LeBron James after a “handshake agreement” between Love’s team, the Minnesota Timberwolves and the Ohio franchise has reportedly been agreed upon already.

Brian Windhorst of ESPN.COM mentioned the development on a the site’s radio show on Monday confirming recent reports that both squads are just waiting for the August 23 date before formally announcing the trade deal as official.

The trade package that has been circulating in the rumour mill the past two weeks has Andrew Wiggins, Anthony Bennett and a future first round pick going to the Timberwolves in exchange for Love.

But even Windhorst admits that any Love-to-Cleveland deal is not final.

“The deal is done, but not done. The teams have agreed, but they can’t say they have agreed and they can’t agree because we are in this weird moratorium period. Because you can’t trade Andrew Wiggins until the 23rd of this month,” shared the writer during the radio show which also featured other ESPN personalities like Chris Broussard and Ryan Ruocco.

While the “handshake agreement” between Cleveland-Minnesota is a good sign that it is indeed a done deal, there is still a chance that other teams, particularly the Golden State Warriors, provide stiff competition for LeBron’s Cavaliers in acquiring Minnesota’s franchise player.

There are other signs that point to Wiggins will be leaving Cleveland too. According to various reports, James has yet to contact the top pick in the 2014 NBA Draft implying that the Cleveland superstar is not really looking forward to playing with Wiggins.

Timberwolves owner Glen Taylor was caught saying that he has resigned to the fact of a Love indeed wants out before the 2014-2015 NBA season and NBA store has also stopped online merchandise orders for Wiggins’ jerseys on their site.

The Warriors do have time to up the ante to convince the Timberwolves they have the better offer. Finally including Klay Thompson might be a conversation re-starter in any Minnesota-Golden State deal which will most likely involve David Lee and Harrison Barnes.

For now, the Cleveland Cavaliers are the clear front-runners for acquiring the services of Kevin Love. And if the “handshake agreement” is true, the LeBron James-led franchise can now be considered the front-runners in the Eastern Conference.