10. Increased Role for Kevin Love
Love was a three-time All-Star with the Minnesota Timberwolves during his six seasons with the franchise, but he was far from that type of player in his first season with Cleveland.
Love averaged just 16.4 points and 9.7 rebounds on 43.4 percent shooting from the field. For comparison’s sake, it was the worst shooting season of his career and the least amount of points he had averaged since the 2009-10 season.
Following the re-signing of the veteran power forward at the beginning of the month, Griffin stressed the Cavaliers will utilize Love more effectively this upcoming season:
“I think he and Coach have had a lot of conversations about that. He and Bron have had conversations about that. Kevin enables us to have somebody else carry the mail when LeBron sits down once in a while. Kyrie was in a situation where he was clearly the one who was taking over when LeBron was out and I think we probably didn’t utilize Kevin enough to make Kyrie’s job easier. I think we have the ability to put him at the elbow and run offense through him a lot more than we did – some of the things he did really well in Minnesota.”
If the team remains true to their word, we will see Love at his very best which will only mean good things for the Cavaliers and their championship aspirations.
