would you still say the same thing if they trade love this off season ( which they will imo if they lose again to GSW).
Again, nobody could have predicted the unremarkable 51-win Warriors were going to morph into the historic juggernaut that they are now. These are the type of decisions you make in the moment based off of a combination of evidence, common sense and foresight. At the time, Love was considered one of the best players in the league who, coincidentally, was basically suffering the same fate as KG being great yet stuck in the purgatory known as Minnesota. A team going "all-in" doesn't wait. You don't luck into getting LeBron back and say "We're going to wait a year" or "Yeah, we're not going to put the best possible team out there". At the time, Love was the much better option; and as I said before, had Cleveland been healthy they would have been competitive against teams like San Antonio, OKC, LAC and us - teams that were considered favorites to make the NBA Finals last year (before GS blew up and took the league hostage). It looks bad now, but Cleveland made the right choice at the time. Of course, hindsight says otherwise.
The funny thing is when LeBron returned to the Cavs, even he acknowledged it might take some time to put together a championship caliber team. Now maybe he was just being humble or trying to buy himself and the organization an extra year and I know hindsight is 20/20, but maybe they should've stuck with Wiggins and Bennett and seen what they had before pulling the trigger on Love(or anyone else for that matter).
LeBron wanted Kevin Love. It wasn't a secret. When you're the best player in the league and you jump ship, it kind of goes without saying it affords you a high degree of influence with your "new" team. And like I said above, I can't really blame him.
Take out the Warriors, and the Cavs would still be ringless right now. The Love mistake wasn't just that they had to give up Wiggins for nothing, it was that he simply doesn't fit in with this team.
Fit is one thing. But the fact that the Cavs have made the Finals in both seasons completely negates your point. Of course it's theoretically possible for the Cavs to win a ring in either season. They made it. They got there. Sure, the East is weak but you still have to win the games to qualify; which they did. And like I said, GS's rise was impossible to predict. Prior to acquiring Love, the favorites to take the West were SA, OKC, LAC and us. Cleveland would have been competitive in a series against all of the above.
Ainge is watching this and saying, "wait, why do I want to give up a 1st round pick for this loser again?"
Depends on what they get, i.e. what his trade value is at this point. Has Wiggins improved his draft stack over the past two years? It's hard to say. Two years ago, he was a prospect with limitless potential. Now, he's...still largely a prospect who probably isn't going to be a superduperstar, but might still be a very good player and is still very young. But he's struggled on both ends most of the time. Basically, you have to judge which would be the more attractive trade asset right now...because there's no way they would have won the title last year or this year with Wiggins, so it didn't cost them a title to the point. After this loss, they'd probably be looking to deal Wiggins for extra veteran talent to push them over the top had they not made the Love deal in 2014. I don't think it's clear who the better trade asset is. Some of the shine is off Wiggins, a lot of the shine is off Love. But Love has actually proven that he can be dominant in the NBA, Wiggins hasn't.
Dude he is 20 years old and scored 20 points a game last year. Good for 19th in the league in scoring and he had a higher shooting % than 12 of the guys above him. He is younger than everyone above him, with the average age of the players being 28 or 29 years old. The next two seasons he should up his scoring a bit each year. And the third year from now he will probably be a top 2 or 3 scorer in the league. I think Wiggins and Towns wouldn't be traded under any circumstances at this point.
Love has proven he can't take a team to the playoff when he is the main guy. He's proven he can't help a team win a championship when he's the 3rd guy
Are you telling me he's not an upgrade over Jefferson both offensively and defensjvely? Is there a better point power forward in the history of the NBA than Lebron (if he played that position exclusively)
Judging by the way, the Cavs won last year in the East. I don't think the Cavs miss a beat with Wiggins with all other pieces being the same. I think Wiggins would've developed into a much better defender being forced into a more supplementary role, next to Irving and James. While, he'd be an outstanding 2nd - 3rd go-to option. Wiggins wouldn't be relied upon to score, yet he could feasibly average 16 ppg - 20 ppg and not compromise the team's overall gameplan. Wiggins would actually have helped the Cavs, more against these West teams, like the Warriors, Thunder, or Spurs. Having another high-caliber, versatile player against teams that tend exploit Cleveland for a lack of such. They'd still be a 3 point shooting team, as well. I believe it was a move that hurt them -- long term. Though for win-now mode, Love was the "slightly" better selection. I didn't think Love would fit in with the Cavs, as easily as Wiggins would have over a period of time. Even being a 3-point maestro, Love struggled with the Cavs (still does to extent) early, because he needs his hands on the ball to be effective, while he's not a particular great defender (and hasn't shown any improvement in that area). In Wiggins case, he's only 20 and with the right coach, I think he can be at worst a very above average defender. He would've eventually became the #1 option on the team as Lebron aged and Irving was in his prime. LeBron would be morphing more into a Magic-type player, while Wiggins started to dominate more often as a scorer. The Cavs, I believe over a period of time, would be more competitive and more than capable of beating Golden State with athleticism and size, like OKC or SA. Even in the Finals, today, it's a point where I think Wiggins would benefit them more than Love has.
but wiggins can't shoot 3's yet. he's taking 2 a game and hasn't shot over 31% yet. from an offensive perspective having a 4 like love (we can argue lebron should always play the 4) that's shoots 5+ 3's a game at 36+% is a huge difference from an SF who basically can't shoot 3's. love at the 4 allows you to have extra rebounding without hurting the offense. but the warriors are really the only ones who do that. the spurs don't take a ton of 3's and aren't the athletic/shooting team that the warriors are. the thunder have several people you can hide a bad defender on. and you actually have trapping options if they run a durant or westbrook PnR with love because you don't have to worry about everybody else on the floor like with the warriors. but at the end of the day, lebron wasn't coming back to one day be tim duncan at 38 with wiggins in his prime. he's only coming back if you are going to win now. which is why, as you point out, love was the slightly better selection. basically wiggins is slightly overpaying for love (whereas any other package would have been underpaying and would have probably been beaten by some other team), but with no other big-time options and lebron wanting to win now, i think you pretty much have to make that trade. but that's hindsight. if you could go to the future and be shown the 73 win warriors, you almost certainly don't put everything on kevin love. you still don't keep wiggins, but you trade for someone else. but who was building their team to face a 51 win, first round exit team that was hiring another broadcaster (and failed gm) for it's head coach?
Because the poster I was responding to was making the argument the Cavs were going to lose no matter who they played in the Finals both years. An argument that has no logical basis. Say what you will about the East, but the Cavs were good enough to make the Finals in back-to-back years. Obviously, they stood a decent chance to win a ring given that knowledge. The point I was making was the Cavs had the misfortune of playing a historically great team, whereas in any other year you're facing a team "normal" Western Conference winner that isn't 73 wins and record-shatteringly good. Which all goes back to my point that, knowing what the Cavs knew at the time, they stood a decent chance of winning a ring by adding [then widely considered one of the best players in the league] Love to compete against the SA's, LAC's, OKC's and Rockets of the world; teams that were widely considered the Cleveland's most likely opponents in the NBA Finals.
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-lang="en"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">Kevin Love has 2 points in the 1st half. Where’s Kevin?<a href="https://t.co/U84n9dbySL">https://t.co/U84n9dbySL</a></p>— Bleacher Report (@BleacherReport) <a href="https://twitter.com/BleacherReport/status/742543618229948416">June 14, 2016</a></blockquote> <script async src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
LOL. LBJ must have read Love post about being disrespectful. Love tries to high 5 at LBJ and LBJ yells at him Will a Pat Bev and Corey Brewer for Love deal be done? GET IT DONE MURRARY http://imgur.com/8tStgoL
