The Cleveland Cavaliers do not intend to make Kevin Love a trade asset as this NBA Trade deadline nears, despite him suffering a recent injury that has put him out for the ensuing eight weeks.
“I was told adamantly this week that [the Cavaliers] were not going to move [Kevin Love],” said Marc Stein of The New York Times during an appearance in Nate Duncan’s Dunc’d On podcast. “Because I’d heard that they were open to it, and that they were looking at that dramatic of a restructuring if necessary. But when I posed it to people in the know there, I was shut down pretty vociferously. And now that the injury has occured, I don’t think we’re ever really gonna know the truth, because he becomes a lot harder to trade now that he can’t play for another six weeks.”
Trading an injured player is a tricky avenue for NBA front offices — and no one would know better than the Cavs, who swapped their estranged point guard Kyrie Irving for Isaiah Thomas, who was ruled out for the season prior with a hip injury.
That injury carried midway into this 2017-18 season, with still no signs that he is back to his prime form from 2016-17 — one that saw him be the third-best scorer in the league a season ago.
Love’s fractured hand injury puts him in a timeline to return right before the end of the season, with barely a few games to get himself right before gearing up for the postseason. Bu despite whatever moves the Cavs make during this trade deadline, it seems like they intend to keep their marksman forward for the rest of this season, despite his ailment.