Editors Note: This piece was published with editorial contributions from Nate Smith and EvilGenius, and with scouting contributions from Ben Werth. Also, please check out David Wood’s Links to the Present published earlier today.



On January 13, the Cavaliers lost their sixth game in a row to drop below .500 (19-20). Kevin Love played particularly poorly, shooting 3-11 from the floor and posting a team-worst -19 in under 27 minutes. He rode the pine for the entire fourth quarter. (It was not the first time Love had been benched for the entire fourth quarter of a non-blowout: on December 26th, Coach Blatt, searching for answers, ran with an ultra-small lineup of LeBron-Delly-Dion-MMiller-TT in the fourth quarter and it worked – the Cavs outscored the Magic 27-14 and won by nine.) Despite the fact that Markieff Morris (or as LeBron referred to him “one of the Morris twins”) torched King James in the fourth, it was Kevin Love’s lackluster defense and poor shooting that was the story of the game, and the “Kevin Love’s Not Fitting In” theme was an undeniable reality of the young (but not that young) season. Ten weeks later, is that “theme” still even relevant? (Spoiler Alert: NO!)

Just two nights later, an acute onset of back spasms came over K Love right before tipoff in the start of a Staples Center back-to-back. It’s hard to imagine this now, but a loss to the Lakers that night just may have led to David Blatt’s immediate firing. The “Blatt has lost team, and doesn’t have LeBron’s support” narrative had reached a fever pitch, the Cavs had lost six in a row, they had started the Mozgov/Smith/Shumpert era with a terrifying record of Goose Egg wins and four losses. Even LeBron’s return from his south Florida hiatus hadn’t cured their disease. Cleveland’s defense never looked worse and they got blown out of the gym against the “freaking Kings” once again. A loss to the laughably inept Lakers could have spelled for David Blatt certain doom, much like Chris Grant the previous season.

The Cavs were in such a state of crisis that I think few of us appreciated what transpired that evening. We were just glad the bleeding amputations had finally subsided. Let’s take a look through the archives.

Trainer Steve Spiro basically working on Kevin Love's back at every chance. Has a wrap on it again during TO. Love really hurting tonight — Jason Lloyd (@ByJasonLloyd) January 16, 2015

From our own Nate Smith:

CtB commenter, Mac, noted, “”Blatt’s substitution patterns are going from questionable to criminally negligent. Why is Love playing?” Love mercifully went to the bench at the 4:33 mark. We all thought he wouldn’t be back. The Good Guys fought off a four minute scoreless stretch when LeBron and Marion got to the line. And then suddenly, barely able to walk earlier, Kevin Love was back at the scorer’s table.

"Daniel LaRusso is going to fight? Daniel LaRusso is going to fight!" — Jason Lloyd (@ByJasonLloyd) January 16, 2015

Nate again, in his recap:

Then, Kevin Love made the play of the game on defense. He took a charge on a Jeremy Lin drive from just outside the circle that just looked like it hurt. Kevin crumpled like a sack of potatoes. He was noticeably shaken, and it took four Cavs to help him up. It was Cleveland’s grittiest defensive stop of the year. If this season has a turning point, that was it. It was positively inspirational.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bhSLiOFRJe4#t=2m13s

After the game, LeBron had this to say:

I said, ‘Whatever you got. Whatever you can give.’ He did that. He knocked down a 3, he battled on the glass, and even with his back basically feeling like he couldn’t play no more, he took a charge. Those are moments in a season where you know your team is taking a step forward. To have one of your big guys do that, that was huge.

Said David Blatt:

That was the play of the game. Everyone is asking me again. Kevin Love is doing a lot of things that he hasn’t done in the past, and he’s doing them well. Again, I take my hat off to him for his performance.

Remember the date January 15th. It’s the date that almost everything about the Cavs changed. Everything, that is, except all the talk about Kevin Love not fitting in, which, as I sit here on March 23rd, has reached a level of absurdity I can no longer ignore.

I’ve spent the season in a blithe disregard for the conversations swirling around Kevin Love’s future. You gotta understand, this is a big step for me – I’ve always considered myself something of a Cavs-media watchdog. The thing is, after the #seasonofhuh, with buddy ball and Josh Gordon hottakes and Mike Brown getting rehired and re-fired and tracking Dan Gilbert’s plane – I was finally pulverized into submission: I just have to accept that in the NBA, pretty much anything is possible, and engaging in crippling anxiety over the future is futile. So this article isn’t going to be about Kevin Love’s future. I have no idea what the future holds. My gut tells me there’s a better than 50% chance he stays in Cleveland. Kevin Love tells me there is a 100% chance (yeah like he knows). Anyway, I fail to see the financial incentives or the winning-more-basketball-games incentives for Love if he leaves Cleveland. So the main reason he would leave is he’s unhappy about his fit, right?

So how did “Kevin Love is not fitting in” become this infallible truth of our time? I have some theories, and they all involve tired old NBA tropes that just refuse to die no matter how much we worship at the altar of “analytics.” The reality is that whether or not “Kevin Love is Fitting In” might not matter all that much when it comes to Kevin Love’s future. But you already know that. Of exponentially more value to you is the knowledge that Kevin Love is not only fitting in just fine, he’s fitting in exceptionally well. But if you listened to the questions this morning on Mike and Mike, the Dan Patrick Show, or any other number of sportsmedia heads discussing Kevin Love, they all said essentially the same thing: that Kevin Love isn’t fitting in at all.

What the Analysts and Pundits are Saying:

Brian Windhorst: “He has never fit in with this Cavs team… yet the Cavs have been doing fantastic.”

Mike Greenberg: “Every week or two there is another referendum on how Kevin Love is fitting into what’s going on in Cleveland…

Mike Golic: “When you are sitting on the bench in the fourth quarter of games…”

Greenberg: “I can only imagine myself saying, “wait a minute, I’m a star in this league, and ya know, the fourth quarter is going on, these games are being decided, I should be out there.”

Dan Patrick: “Hmm. Ya, I just… you don’t seem happy… having fun. And you’ve always been The Man, and I don’t know how difficult that is to hit the reset and say ‘I’m not the man, I’m not even the second option some nights.'”

Despite our best efforts, the idea that points scored in the fourth quarter matter more than those scored in first quarters cannot be killed off by mere mortals. It’s worth noting, however, that the Cavs sit comfortably at the second seed in the East precisely because they have been killing teams in first quarters all season long (yes, even during the crappy part of the season). Games are being decided before the fourth quarter, and guess who is second to only LeBron in usage during opening quarters and playing exceptionally well in the first and third quarters (all season long)? Yeah, it’s Kevin Love.

Before January 15th, Kevin Love even had some notable fourth quarters, including the Cavs lone win in a span of two weeks.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lujxa00FK_A#t=1m55s

He played almost the entire fourth quarter in an impressive come-from-behind victory over the formidable Raptors back on December ninth, including a momentum-changing 3-pointer that tied the game late in the fourth.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ktLAnVMqDMI#t=1m44s

So the point I’m making is, yes, Kevin Love was benched for two fourth quarters during a particularly dark time in the season. But it wasn’t like he was a non-factor otherwise. And what is so puzzling to me is that, as everything started to click for the Cavs, the only thing anyone finds worthy of conversation is this idea that Kevin Love is not fitting in even now (and the Cavs are winning despite this) and Kevin Love is just chilling on the bench during all these meaningful fourth quarters for no reason at all.

The Myth that Kevin Love isn’t “fitting in at all,” debunked in one graphic.

With the requisite amount of disclaimers about the limited value of raw plus/minus over a 30-game sample, I’m going to just spike this truth-bomb because while it may not mean everything, it certainly means that “Kevin Love is not fitting in at all” loses its air of infallibility and requires a deeper look. Look at our unhappy victim, nestled so unnaturally between two guys that certainly have “The Man” status. Since January 15th, Kevin Love is ranked second behind LeBron James, and sits above MVP-frontrunner Stephen Curry for raw plus/minus, at +10.8 per game.

For all the “not fitting in at all” that Kevin Love is doing, LeBron is doing a great job of taking it upon himself to be a much better player when Kevin Love is on the court. It’s so impressive that LeBron is able to overcome Love’s inability to fit in. For that alone, LeBron should garner more MVP consideration.

Since Jan 15, in 421 minutes without Kevin Love, LeBron’s FG%, 3PFG%, Ast/TO and plus-minus pales in comparison to when he shares the hardwood (670 min) with our refugee from the island of misfit toys. In terms of +/- per minute, LeBron averages +.19 points per minute with Love on the bench, but +.40 points per minute with Love on the floor. That pretty much puts a kibosh on the whole notion that “No child wants to play with a Kevin in the Box that only wants to be a stretch four.”

It’s true, Kevin Love sits on the bench during the fourth quarter of a lot of games.

In fact, crazy stat that is going to sabotage my entire piece: Kevin Love has not stepped onto the court during the fourth quarter in 14 of the Cavs last 33 games. Wow. How do I recover from that? Fortunately, a long time ago, humans determined that it’s not sufficient to tell the truth. You have to tell the “whole truth” and “nothing but the truth” (So help you God!) Why can’t you just tell the “truth?” Turns out the truth, without context, can be more dangerous than a lie.

Of those 14 (of the last 33) games where Kevin Love has been absent during fourth quarters:

-Four were because he wasn’t available for the game at all.

-Eight were because the Cavs were blowing out their opponents by at least 16 points, sometimes 30 or 40 points heading in the fourth quarter. Due, in large part to… Kevin Love!

-One was that incredible game against the Spurs, and much was made during and after the game about Love not getting the call at any time during the fourth quarter, when Kyrie Irving completely took over the game. How many people have pointed out that Love checked in with the Cavs down three in overtime and was plus-7 for the reminder of OT? Interestingly enough, Charles Barkley hated that Love didn’t play in the fourth quarter (when Kyrie’s heroics forced OT), and he hated that Love was put back in in OT (because he would be too tight to contribute). Love’s dime lead to a LeBron 3 that put the Cavs on top for good.

-One was the most recent win against the Bucks. The thing is, Kevin Love almost never starts fourth quarters. Neither does Kyrie Irving. The Cavs whipped the Bucks so thoroughly during the opening minutes of the fourth quarter with LeBron-JR-Shump-Delly-TT that Blatt just rode the hot hands straight into garbage time. Neither Kyrie nor Love checked back in and it was simply because that’s how David Blatt rolls. We knew this about him going into the season, as our own Robert Attenweiler provided that scouting report in the summer. For the game, Love was +1.

So here’s a detailed breakdown of Kevin Love and the fourth quarters since Jan. 15th. The right-most column is my subjective take on whether Kevin Love “fit” in this game.

So, in 33 games, “Kevin Love did not fit in” a whopping three times. And you could make the case that he didn’t fit in during that delightful match with the world champs. That’d be four times since January 15, out of 33 games. That’s a pretty good “Fit In/Fit Out” ratio.

Everyone is Ignoring Defense

No one knows what to make of the Cavs defensively this season. They were a train wreck for the first few months, placing in the bottom five of the entire NBA for significant stretches. Kevin Love had a particularly difficult time dealing with back-to-the-basket bigs and ceded a depressingly-high FG% to opponents in the immediate basket area. And then Timofey came along and was the answer to the question Bill Simmons didn’t want to know, right? Actually, the Cavs defense continued to struggle in the immediate aftermath of the Mozgov acquisition. It took time for everyone to come together. But they did make significant improvements, found ways to tighten the screws when they needed to, and even began playing 48-minutes of basketball (something unthinkable in December). Outside of David Blatt (who everyone just ignores when it comes to this Kevin-Love-fitting-in business) no one gave Love any of the credit for the improved defense. Maybe we should? Check out NBA.com’s defensive rating (the number of points a team allows per 100 possessions while a player is on the court).

It’s crazy, but when Kevin Love, that ol’ sieve of a defender, goes into battle alongside The Iron Curtain, Moz finds a way to more than make up for Love’s inability to fit in. Consider:

In comparing pre-Jauary 15th to post January 15th, Love’s Defensive Rating has dropped from 106.4 to 99.8 (lower is better). In addition, Mozgov has a defensive rating of 100.3 with Love on the bench, and a defensive rating of 97.7 with Love on the floor.

How is K Love doing this? I see him getting his hands up and challenging shots so much more than he used to. He doesn’t play D with his hands at his waist anymore. He’s been able to challenge shots and still get into excellent defensive rebounding position. Love is also doing much better at icing the pick and roll in tandem with his guards. Having Mozgov has limited the overall space for the offense. Love is sending the ball handler either to the baseline or funneling the ball toward Moz. It allows him to use that half step shade to inhibit both roller and handler with one less angle to defend (Moz eliminates the easy drive). Love will still occasionally mini-show on the PnR but much less often than pre-trade. One can’t underestimate the role Shump and JR have played. They both do a good job of chucking the roll man off ball and getting over a screen onball. I especially like the hard fouls JR puts on a lob dunk attempt as a chucker. He had one against DeAndre Jordan that set a great tone. All of that helps Love defend less space. The communication on which strategy to use for certain ball handlers has also much improved.

…This all begs the question: on what planet is this level of intellectual laziness tolerated when a simple blogger who has a family and a different day job can spend a few hours pouring through free and widely available data on the internet and make swiss cheese out of this Tsunami-powered narrative? What is going on that people don’t even debate this point – they just try to cope with the “fascinating” stark reality of it?

Three Theories for Why We’re Here

1.) Kevin Love and David Blatt are two very candid guys in a profession where that is so uncommon that people are ignoring most of what they are saying, because they don’t really believe the words. Have you ever read a military OPR (Officer Performance Report)? Most of them are more impressive than if John Wayne and The Statue of Liberty had a baby that grew up, joined the Air Force, and saved Earth from an Alien Invasion by flying a commandeered alien vessel into the mothership while carrying a nuclear bomb strapped in with duct tape and secured with freedom. An OPR that simply says “Lt So-and-So did his job very well and met all expectations” would indicate that Lt. So-and-So sucked so hard he should just quit America and move to Canada. So how do you discern what’s actually valuable when the noise floor is so high and the hyperbole has saturated the system? Well, you’d just try to make the OPR even more incredible. Which would make it even more difficult to discern value. We are dealing with a similar phenomenon in the sports-media world. Here’s a little graphic I made to illustrate:

What struck me today during the interviews was how everything that Kevin Love said was treated as lip service. When asked about sitting out fourth quarters, Love stated that it was challenging for him at first, but that he realized it was often situational/matchup related and that he decided he was just going to be ready when called upon. So Blatt has said those things, Love is saying those things, and a close-up of the individual games corroborates that it is not some kind of default crutch to overcome Kevin Love’s inability to fit in, but a choice to go extra small, ride the hot hand, or give Kevin Love’s nagging back a rest. All I know is, it took a long freaking time for people to get over Russell Westbrook’s chucking, and I’m still not sure people are done criticizing Kyrie Irving for not being a pure point guard. This whole “Kevin Love doesn’t fit in” thing might be hard to eradicate.

2.) There has to be a story, and this is the last one standing. The NBA is about stars and storylines. More-so now than ever. Think of all the storylines from just this year:

LeBron could be done

Kyrie and LeBron don’t get along and Kyrie never passes.

Tyronn Lue is calling timeouts from the bench and LeBron is undermining Blatt in timeouts. He also grabbed Blatt, and, well, Blatt is probably done. Could be a lost season.

Dion Waiters doesn’t stand for the National Anthem because of his Muslim Faith.

We all know what happened here. LeBron and Kyrie get along great, Kyrie is an offensive wunderkind the likes of which the world has not yet seen and is capable of being the best player on the court or being a distributor. He thrives in catch-and-shoot situations and has ceded control of the team to LeBron, who is playing de-facto PG. Tyronn Lue wasn’t calling timeouts from the bench, because that’s ridiculous and against league rules. David Blatt is just hitting his stride (thanks in part to this effort). Dion Waiters can just be a weird dude sometimes. He’s good-hearted and meant no disrespect to the stars and stripes. He’s also someone else’s story now. That leaves Kevin Love, Kevin Love’s impending Free Agency, Kevin Love’s future, and “Kevin Love is not fitting in.” Honestly, with LeBron out of the MVP running, there is nothing left to talk about until the playoffs. This story would have much less momentum if that whole LeBron “Don’t Fit Out” snafu had never happened. LeBron seems weirdly passive-aggressive at times. Some of this is on him.

3.) For all the Sloan conventions and supposed affinity to the “analytics movement” our sports media figures are still wedded to raw box score stats and other useless relics such as “triple doubles,” “starting lineups,” “fourth quarter closers,” and “alpha dogs” taking over.

Many in the media who’ve been trumpeters of advanced analytics want to have it both ways. They want to blow the horns of analytics when it supports their narrative, but ignore it when it doesn’t fit in with Telenovella style storylines, and lowest-common-denominator talk radio #HotSportsTakes. The media is by-and-large ignoring the positive analytics storyline about Love when it comes to how well the Cavs are playing.

Kevin Love’s raw box score stats are pretty underwhelming – especially when you compare them to his eye-popping numbers from years past. I know as well as anyone, he carried my fantasy team to the championship last season. In terms of raw output he has not delivered. He’s not shooting a good percentage from downtown despite the fact that the vast majority of his looks are spotted-up and open. He has been much more “stretch-four” on offense and looked more like a role-player than an alpha dog. He’s leaving points on the table. The Cavs have struggled (particularly in the early season) to prioritize Love’s touches. As the season wore on they got better at it, but Love has chosen at times to flare to the periphery instead of establishing position on the elbow or block. It’s a work in progress. But to say he’s not fitting in because of his individual numbers is at best half of the equation. The other half is how everyone else is playing because of Love’s presence. And right now, a combination of his defensive rebounding, help defense, court vision, bball IQ, floor spacing and offensive triple threat-ery has the Cavs HUMMING when he’s on the floor. Am I supposed to believe this is happening in spite of Kevin Love?