Kevin Love has the worst contract in the NBA

The first time LeBron James left the Cleveland Cavaliers, their own bad decisions in trying to keep him sent them cratering. Years of shipping out draft picks for bloated veteran contracts left the Cavaliers completely destitute when James joined the Miami Heat, and it was only by the grace of a few ping pong balls that Cleveland ever managed to lure him back for a second tour of duty. Armed with the lessons of that past, Cleveland entered this offseason in surprisingly good shape. 

They already had a surprisingly deep cache of young talent — including a top-10 pick in Collin Sexton — before ever having to tank. Throw in Larry Nance Jr. and Cedi Osman and Cleveland was already three-fifths of the way to a future playoff starting lineup. Two years of high lottery picks would have taken them the rest of the way. And if it didn’t, the summer after that second tank would left the Cavs with another gift: cap space.

When this offseason began, Cleveland did not have a single dollar committed to their 2020-2021 cap sheet. Manage those finances correctly, and Cleveland easily could have entered that summer with a full starting lineup of young pieces and max cap space to supplement it in any way possible. Throw in the inevitable bounty of a Kevin Love trade, and Cleveland wouldn’t even need to be bad for very long. Ask the Orlando Magic how appealing a two-year tank sounds.

But picking good players and spending money responsibly is not something the Cavaliers do. It took them less than a month to give up the head start that the last year of planning gave them. The last hope Cleveland had of returning to relevancy in the near future died the moment Kevin Love was signed to a four-year, $120 million contract extension that simultaneously manages to impede the development of present players, prevent the acquisition of future prospects and cost them any degree of cap flexibility moving forward.

Let’s start with the obvious. The Love-led Cleveland Cavaliers are not going to win a championship. This is hardly breaking news considering the LeBron-led Cleveland Cavaliers did not win the championship last season. And that the Love-led Minnesota Timberwolves never even finished with a .500 record. The goal of an NBA team is to win the championship. If you cannot win it in the present, the next best thing is to try to win it in the future.

Relying on players like Nance, Sexton and Osman as the foundation of doing so is sound logic. None are guaranteed stars. All three have untapped potential. That potential is likeliest to be achieved by maximizing their opportunities to touch the ball. Love averaged 18.5 shot attempts per game in his three final seasons with the Timberwolves. Those are 18.5 fewer shot attempts for Nance, Sexton and Osman if we assume he reverts to a similar (though likely less effective) playing style. The only argument in favor of keeping Love, from their perspective, is that the spacing he generates would give them easier shot attempts.

The easy rebuttal is that Ersan Ilyasova just signed for the Mid-Level Exception. Nemanja Bjelica just signed for the Room Exception. The Houston Rockets are begging someone to take Ryan Anderson off of their hands. Tall people who can shoot are not in short supply.

But first-round draft picks certainly are. Factor in opportunity cost, and Love just cost Cleveland at least two of them. The first comes from what he would have netted in a trade. Any number of teams would have gladly given up a first-round pick, if not more, for the right to have Love for a year. But by signing him to an extension now, the Cavaliers have effectively tanked his trade value.

The immediate reason for that is that he cannot be traded for six months following the extension. Not only does that effectively remove half of the value Love could provide a team this year because he wouldn’t join them until around the halfway point of the season, but it also forces Cleveland to make difficult roster choices. Trading for big contracts like Love’s is difficult. It usually requires multiple players going in the other direction. And, the offseason’s lack of roster restrictions makes that sort of deal easier. Now, if the Cavaliers want to absorb multiple players in an unbalanced trade, they would have to waive someone off of their roster to make room. That is typically an unappealing proposition.

Even assuming that these hurdles can be overcome, the biggest one still stands. Love’s deal has been compared by many to the one signed by Blake Griffin last offseason. That deal locked Griffin in for five years and allowed the Los Angeles Clippers to trade him for a stable of young assets. The expectation among many is that the Cavaliers will be able to do the same thing.

They won’t.

That assumption should be met with a more obvious one: the NBA learned from Detroit’s mistake. The Pistons are now saddled with four years of bad Griffin money and no immediate path to the playoffs — let alone true contention. Griffin was 28 when he was traded. Love will be 30 on opening day. Both come with severe injury concerns. Both struggle mightily on defense. And both play a position that may not exist by the end of their current deals. The fact that Love can shoot three-pointers is hardly enough to convince anyone to trade for him now that a precedent exists for that same trade’s failure.

Love is valuable on a one-year contract. A two-year extension at reasonable money would have been wise. Love is going to average $29 million in salary over the next five seasons. No team wants that on their books. Cleveland is now stuck with it.

But the first-round pick Cleveland could have gotten in a trade is fictional. They owe a very real one to the Atlanta Hawks thanks to the Kyle Korver trade. The Cavs keep it if it lands in the top-10. Atlanta gets it if it’s No. 11 or later. It has two years to convey before turning into two second-round picks. Without Love, Cleveland would have kept their pick in both of the next two seasons with ease. They would have been among the five worst teams in basketball each season. Love is just good enough to cost them the No. 13 pick. That is, after all, the pick Minnesota had in Love’s final season there.

Keeping Love isn’t just going to cost Cleveland a top draft pick. It is going to cost them a pick, period. The Cavs are, in essence, trading a first-round choice for the right to pay Kevin Love for the next five seasons.

And there is absolutely no reason to believe that is a good idea. If the goal is to make the playoffs, Cleveland must have missed the fact that Love-led Minnesota teams never made it to the postseason. If the idea is to refocus the offense around Love’s post-ups, the Cavs must be ignoring the fact that his 0.98 points per possession on such plays last season, per NBA.com, made such plays less efficient than the worst offense in the NBA last season (a title that belongs to the Phoenix Suns with approximately 1.01 points per possession).

Love is no longer an elite rebounder. His value as a three-point shooter is mitigated in an offense without a playmaker to get him the ball. He will be one of the worst offenders in what promises to be the NBA’s worst defense. The Eastern Conference is so bad at the bottom that Love is good enough to steal the wins necessary to give up Cleveland’s pick. It is good enough at the top to render that sacrifice pointless.

It was going to be harder for Cleveland to force itself out of relevancy upon James’ second departure than it was the first time around. But by golly, they’ve managed to do just that. I sincerely hope their fans enjoyed the past four seasons. Because that franchise is not going to matter on the national stage for a long, long time.