Cavs' Kevin Love Talks Social Distancing, COVID-19 Relief on 'The Daily Show'
April 1, 2020
Cleveland Cavaliers star Kevin Love made an appearance on The Daily Show to discuss helping out arena workers during the coronavirus pandemic and the impact of social distancing on people who deal with mental health issues.
Speaking to Trevor Noah about the situation, Love said there is a sense of loneliness and isolation that can be "devastating," but there are things that can help.
"You know, continuing to create community in that aspect—I think that's a huge thing. ... But this social isolation has been, speaking of navigating this time, very, very different," he said.
When the NBA season was suspended March 11, Love pledged $100,000 through his charity foundation to support arena workers at Rocket Mortgage FieldHouse.
"I thought it was important to just take care of people that had taken care of me so long," Love told Noah about his donation.
In March 2018, Love opened up about his mental health struggles in an article for the Players' Tribune:
"Mental health isn’t just an athlete thing. What you do for a living doesn't have to define who you are. This is an everyone thing. No matter what our circumstances, we're all carrying around things that hurt — and they can hurt us if we keep them buried inside. Not talking about our inner lives robs us of really getting to know ourselves and robs us of the chance to reach out to others in need. So if you're reading this and you’re having a hard time, no matter how big or small it seems to you, I want to remind you that you're not weird or different for sharing what you're going through."
Love also addressed the possibility of the NBA altering its schedule with a later start date for the 2020-21 campaign.
"It's a scholastic schedule; you get summers off," he said. "... I've done it for 25 years now of organized basketball, where it's September and October [to start], and if you go all the way to the Finals, it's through June, and then we get the summers off. So we have it really good, and that's not lost on any of us."
NBA Commissioner Adam Silver remains hopeful the league will be able to resume the 2019-20 season in some form later this year.
Per ESPN's Adrian Wojnarowski, Labor Day Weekend is considered the "loosest of drop-dead dates" to complete the 2020 NBA Finals.
While it's unclear if the league would permanently move to a December-August schedule, there has been increased chatter about it being something to consider.
At the MIT Sloan Sports Analytics Conference last month, Atlanta Hawks CEO Steve Koonin floated the idea of starting the NBA season in mid-December to help ratings.