Cavs: Team should bench Kevin Love for 2 years if he won’t take a buyout

By Chad Porto | Sep 3, 2021

TORONTO, ON - DECEMBER 16: Kevin Love #0 of the Cleveland Cavaliers looks on during the second half of an NBA game against the Toronto Raptors at Scotiabank Arena on December 16, 2019 in Toronto, Canada. NOTE TO USER: User expressly acknowledges and agrees that, by downloading and or using this photograph, User is consenting to the terms and conditions of the Getty Images License Agreement. (Photo by Vaughn Ridley/Getty Images)

Kevin Love refuses to take a buyout, so that means the Cavs have one option.

Kevin Love has made it known that he values his salary more than anything. Despite being older, injured, and with a contract he no longer warrants, he’s become unmoveable unless someone more worthwhile like Collin Sexton is added to the deal. Love knows this. Love’s agent knows this. Despite the fact that everyone in and out of the NBA knows Love’s history, his attitude issues, his inability to stay on the court, and his declining play, Love actually expects someone to trade for him. He, a man who no longer plays offense and has never played defense.

If Love refuses to take a buyout, then the only sensible thing at this point is to bench him and maybe just send him home (if possible under the CBA) for two years. Playing would only devalue him further, and if he’s so gung-ho about getting back on the court, maybe realizing that you’ll never play again may encourage you to talk to your bosses about a buyout.

There’s no point in not doing it. The team can’t save $60 million over the next two years. Either they trade him and have to take back all but 10% of what would amount to be his salary, or they waive him and eat all $60 million, or they keep him and pay him $60 million anyway.

We’ve already seen him be a disaster as a mentor in 2020-2021, so there’s no benefit in having him in the locker room either.

The Cavs owe Kevin Love nothing at this point

The whole “he helped us win a title” no longer applies either. That only works if you’re not a headache to deal with constantly. Love has made it clear he’s refusing to give up on his contract for the chance to play and win elsewhere. He’d probably still make well over $30 million on a buyout, and it’s not like he’s an NFL practice squad player (they make barely $100k while getting CTE). Love has made hundreds of millions of dollars. He can afford to give up some cash if he really wanted to win.

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He clearly doesn’t. So he’ll take the money instead. That doesn’t mean the Cavs have to subject themselves to any more childlike outbursts like punching away a basketball that results in a turnover, or screaming at Koby Altman, or punching furniture cus he’s “frustrated”. That wasn’t an excuse then, and it certainly isn’t an excuse now. After all, one can only claim they are frustrated in a game because they aren’t winning and things are going badly, but as we’ve seen from Love, winning doesn’t matter to him.

If the Cavs can find a way to send him home and have him collect his paychecks away from the team, they should. Let him fade away from the spotlight. Let’s see how fast he agrees to a buyout when people forget who he is. All the while dropping what you’d offer in a buyout until he’s giving back most of what’s left by the time he finally decides to take it (assuming he ever does).

Sign Isiah Hartenstein to replace Love on the squad and call it day.

Love has ruined his reputation in the NBA, and it’s time the Cavs stopped pretending that he has any value left. He doesn’t. The best thing to do is send him to Oregon on a camping trip for two years and stop taking calls about him.