The NBA All Star reserves have been announced and the coaches selected for the Eastern Conference’s frontcourt players. Unfortunately, Cavs power forward Kevin Love was not selected by the NBA’s coaches, as they instead went with Chris Bosh of the Miami Heat, Andre Drummond of the Detroit Pistons, and Paul Millsap of the Atlanta Hawks. Realistically, all of those guys have played very well this season, especially Millsap and Drummond who are averaging career highs across the board. However, the Hawks are fourth in the East at 27-21, the Pistons are sixth at 25-21, and the Heat are also seventh at 27-21 while Cleveland sits at 32-12 and first in the East.
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Coach Tyronn Lue spoke with members of the media at the Cavs shootaround, and ESPN’s Dave McMenamin reported on his surprised reaction to Love not making it.
“I just thought, in this league it’s always been about winning and winning has always been rewarded,” coach Lue said Friday morning. “Being No. 1 in the East and Kevin being one of four guys in the NBA to average a double-double on a winning team, I’ve just never seen being a first-place team and getting one guy in. I’ve never seen that before.”
Love is averaging 15.7 points, 10.8 rebounds, 2.4 assists, and one steal per game while shooting 42% from the field and hitting two three pointers on 36% shooting. Those are pretty solid numbers from a guy who’s still finding his way in the offense of the Eastern Conference’s best team.
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LeBron James also expressed his disappointment in Love not being voted by the coaches, adding that he doesn’t think the firing of Blatt affected the coaches’ decisions.
“I haven’t seen any of the coaches speak out on it, so I really haven’t noticed it much,” James said. “But, we got to earn our respect, as a team and as a franchise we got to continue to earn our respect. It’s just another notion of that.
“It’s definitely a kick in the rear end for our team for sure, knowing all the work we put into it and knowing the two other guys,” James said. “You know, Kyrie’s games being limited like that, I figured the coaches wouldn’t give him the nod, but you know he’s an All-Star. And then with Kev, I think Kev has played great basketball for the first half of the season. He could’ve been awarded, but hopefully those guys use it as motivation for the rest of the season and the team will as well.”
To top it all off, Love has been healthy and played in all 44 games for the Cavs so far, and has had a double double in 21 of those 44 games. In case you weren’t sure, Love and Tristan Thompson are the only Cavaliers to have played in all 44 games. Love has put in 88 three-pointers this season, the 3rd most by any power forward in the NBA behind Mirza Teletovic of the Phoenix Suns and Ryan Anderson of the New Orleans Pelicans. The only difference is that those two have atrocious records at 14-33 for Phoenix and 17-28 for New Orleans.
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“I think there’s a lot of good players in the East,” Love said when he was asked about not being selected. “I’ve said that all along, especially at the forward position, too, with the starters. I think it’s a good team on both sides.”
Was Love disappointed?
“Yeah, but you knew that everybody getting back there would be a couple things that changed. Now just finding a way to adapt to Coach Lue’s style and go from there.”