Kevin Love Officially Joins Cleveland Cavaliers, LeBron James
Right after the clock turned Aug. 23, the Cleveland Cavaliers and the Minnesota Timberwolves put pen to paper that sent disgruntled superstar Kevin Love to join LeBron James in Ohio.
The swap came after the 30-day moratorium that prohibited the transfer of 2014 number 1 pick Andrew Wiggins was lifted, Adrian Wojnarowski of Yahoo! Sports reports. These are the players and teams that will change uniforms in the blockbuster three-team trade:
Cleveland Cavaliers: Kevin Love
Minnesota Timberwolves: Andrew Wiggins, Anthony Bennet, Thaddues Young, Trade Exception ($6M)
Philadelphia 76ers: Luc Richard Mbah a Moute, Alexey Shved, 2015 Miami first round pick.
This is the first time that pundits believe the Timberwolves got fair value for a superstar demanding a trade. This might be both luck and skill as Timberwolves general manager and coach Flip Saunders held out and used patience in waiting for the best deal available. His patience coupled with the professed preference of the best basketball player, LeBron James, to team up with him Olympic buddy Kevin Love made the deal possible.
With the arrival of Kevin Love. this now makes the Cavaliers team loaded in a weak Eastern Conference. The Cavs can parade an ultra-flexible line-up that can spread the floor for James to post-up and pick and roll. The addition of a unique big man who can both shoot lights out from beyond and gallop rebounds like a monster would surely put the Cavs in the championship conversation in the next 5 to 6 years. Not to mention the 2014 all-star game MVP Kyrie Irving who is only 22 years old and you have a scary lineup.
The Minnesota Timberwolves are also rebuilding nicely on the fly with the addition of athletes who can flank the gifted passer, Ricky Rubio. Rubio can now fling alley-oops to new backcourt buddy Wiggins aside from Zach LeVine who registered the highest verticals during the rookie training camp, Bennett, Thaddeus Young and Corey Brewer. They still have two big man stalwarts in Nikola Pekovic and Gourgi Dieng despite the departure of Kevin Love.
The involvement of the Philadelphia 76ers is mostly for salary dumping and bottoming out purposes. They have let go the last ace veteran in Young and are doling out more minutes to youngsters Joel Embid and Nerlens Noel. The 76ers are still expected to hog the bottom of the standings which will again result to a high pick in next year's lottery.
Kevin Love's transfer has long been rumoured to be a done deal and newspaper advertisement of the Timberwolves available Sunday all but confirmed the transfer.