Kevin Love Is Next in Line for Cleveland Cavaliers' Blame Game
The Cleveland Cavaliers were expected to be dominant. They've been decent instead.
Go ahead and guess how that's been received by a basketball world set on the Cavs becoming the NBA's version of the Harlem Globetrotters, a devastating force as wildly successful as it is aesthetically pleasing.
Cleveland hasn't come close to reaching that standard, which has inevitably led to more finger pointing than a traffic cop does on the busiest night of the year. LeBron James isn't the same. David Blatt is in over his head. Dion Waiters needs to stop being so Dion Waiters-y.
The blame game is a brutal exercise in which there are no winners. But it's a preferred pastime of this what-have-you-done-for-me-lately generation of sports fans, especially when our eyes aren't seeing the magical brilliance our minds say is absolutely possible.
That means the finger pointing isn't going to stop. In fact, as Grantland's Zach Lowe observed, the next target has already been identified—three-time All-Star Kevin Love:
Love, in a lot of ways, resembles the Cavaliers as a whole. He's been good but nowhere near as effective as many thought he could be.
The 26-year-old has tallied 17.1 points, 10.2 rebounds and 2.4 assists on a nightly basis. Those numbers aren't as rich as some he has put up in his past (he went for 26.1, 12.5 and 4.4, respectively last season), but they are still significant. Only three other players—Pau Gasol, DeMarcus Cousins and Nikola Vucevic—are averaging at least 17 points, 10 boards and two dimes this season.
Similarly, the Cavs are 18-12 on the season. Their .600 winning percentage is fifth highest in the Eastern Conference and has them on track for 49 victories. Considering the amount of moves this franchise made over the summer, including the arrival of the unproven Blatt, that's still an impressive figure even if it falls short of lofty preseason projections.
But that massive disconnect between assumptions and reality has left many searching for the cause.
Some have pushed Blatt under the microscope. After all, he's the one overseeing the league's 23rd-ranked defense, a group that has yet to figure out how to mask its glaring lack of rim protection. Cleveland's opponents are shooting 63.2 percent within five feet of the basket, which is the second-highest conversion rate allowed by any defense this season.
The Cavs have been gouged by pick-and-roll attacks, and one Eastern Conference scout told Sporting News' Sean Deveney that Blatt deserves a lot of the blame for that:
"I think you can put a lot of that on Coach Blatt because for one thing, they have not addressed the problem in terms of the defensive scheme and for another thing, he isn’t getting these guys to give that extra effort to fight through screens and to recover when they get beat. I mean, you see these plays where the ballhandler gets a step and the defender just kind of slumps his shoulders and that’s it. You can’t do that, you can’t give up on the play.
"
This isn't simply a knock on Blatt's tactical approach. Once people start questioning the team's effort, that could be the sign of a much larger issue.
Apparently, the Cavaliers are worried about just that. They are still trying to gauge whether the first-year coach has the ability to connect with this roster, as ESPN.com's Brian Windhorst and Marc Stein reported:
"There is a growing level of worry within the Cleveland Cavaliers organization about first-year coach David Blatt and his ability to reach the team, according to league sources.
Sources told ESPN.com that there is rising concern in team circles about the level of response that Blatt is getting on the floor, with Blatt himself acknowledging that the Cavaliers 'lost our energy and we lost our competitiveness' in Sunday night's embarrassing home loss to Detroit.
"
Cleveland's defense has buckled on the perimeter and collapsed underneath. But defensive struggles should have been expected given the makeup of this roster. That doesn't completely absolve Blatt of blame, but a lot of these challenges could be related to the personnel.
And that's one of several areas likely to bring heat in Love's direction.
He has always done his best work on the offensive side of the ball. In three of the last four seasons—not including his injury-plagued 2012-13 campaign—he totaled 27.1 offensive win shares and only 8.5 win shares at the opposite end.
He has never been a shot-blocker (0.5 per game over his career), nor a real deterrent around the basket. He has allowed opponents to shoot 60.9 percent at the rim this season, which ranks 68th out of the 69 defenders that have faced at least five such shots per game. Last season, he tied for 72nd out of 75 volume rim protectors after yielding a 57.4 percent conversion rate at the basket.
"Like it or not, he is who we thought he was, and any team leaning on Love to help protect the paint will be exposed," wrote Grantland's Kirk Goldsberry.
Love's inability to guard the rim has already contributed to at least one lengthy sideline stint. He didn't see any fourth-quarter action during Cleveland's 98-89 win over the Orlando Magic on Dec. 26. The Cavs had dramatically different defensive results with Love off the floor, per ESPN Stats & Info:
Love, to his credit, did not complain about the decision.
"It's all about the matchup," he said, per Northeast Ohio Media Group's Chris Haynes. "Had it been different, it might have been a tough pill to swallow. ... It was really how they matched up. They went small. It wasn't hard for me at all."
However, it may not have been as easy for Cavs fans to watch. Love is supposed to be a pivotal piece of their championship puzzle, but that game highlighted how damaging his defensive limitations can be.
Love's defensive problems have been compounded by the unexpected obstacles he has encountered at the offensive end.
A drop in production was to be expected given the strength of his new supporting cast. He went from splitting touches with Ricky Rubio and Nikola Pekovic to sharing the offensive load with James and Kyrie Irving. The quantity was never going to be the same in Cleveland.
But, in theory, Love should have received a significant statistical boost in quality. The opposite has happened instead.
His shooting percentages are down from the field (43.4 from 45.7) and from three (33.8 from 37.6). His player efficiency rating has taken more than a 30 percent hit (18.0 from 26.9). His 114 offensive rating is lower than it has been in three of the last four seasons.
This is where Love's critics will center their attacks. This is supposed to be the facet of the game he dominates.
But he is struggling to get back on offense what he's allowing on defense. The Cavs are still outscoring their opponents by 3.6 points per 100 possessions with Love on the floor, but that's a lower on-court net efficiency rating than James, Irving, Tristan Thompson and Shawn Marion have.
Love, who finished last season with the league's third-highest PER, hasn't really looked like a superstar. And that makes him an obvious candidate to be the next one tossed under the bus.
The problem is that blaming Love for the Cavs' issues doesn't solve them. He is a major part of this franchise's plans, unless it entertains the foolish notion of selling low on a player it parted with each of the last two No. 1 draft picks to acquire.
Rather than pointing fingers at Love's struggles, the Cavs need to figure out why they exist. They have had just as much of an impact on Love's declining statistics as the stretch big himself, if not more.
Cleveland has largely relegated Love to floor-spacing duties. He has never spent this much time beyond the arc (37.7 percent of his field-goal attempts are threes), nor seen this little action under the basket (only 22.6 percent of his shots come within three feet).
As SB Nation's Mike Prada observed, the Cavs aren't using everything Love has to offer:
Love needs to adjust his game to mesh with his new teammates, but he also needs the opportunity to do so. He is only going to be as effective in this offense as Blatt allows him to be.
"Since he has the ball in his hands less, you have to (go to him) more in order to get him more involved," Blatt noted, per Bob Finnan of The News-Herald. "That’s a pretty fair distinction compared to a guy who can get his own by just having the ball in his hands."
The good news is the Cavs have yet to hit the halfway point of their first season together. They have already stockpiled some impressive wins, and this roster is several stories below its ceiling.
There is plenty of time to fit these pieces together, plus breadcrumbs left by James' old superteam to show how it can all work out.
In 2010-11, James' Miami Heat lumbered to a 9-8 start. Their coach, Erik Spoelstra, faced the same scrutiny that Blatt is encountering. Those players dealt with the same questions these ones are hearing.
That team responded to its sluggish start by winning 21 of its next 22 games and eventually making the first of four consecutive NBA Finals appearances. By 2012, the Heat were crowned NBA champions.
The Cavaliers have yet to have their breakthrough, though their resume does include an eight-game winning streak already. A landscape-altering run isn't guaranteed to come at any point, but Cleveland can draw hope that it will from both past precedent and its present collection of All-Star talent.
But neither that optimism nor the knowledge that these things take time is capable of stopping the blame game once it has started. Only sustained success can do that.
Until Cleveland starts racking up wins, the finger pointing will continue. And it will soon set its sights on Love.
Unless otherwise noted, statistics used courtesy of Basketball-Reference.com and NBA.com.
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