Recently, Jerry Colangelo came out with a harsh account of dealing with Kevin Love on the Olympic team this year.
Colangelo was quoted as saying:
Colangelo not holding back on Kevin Love 😳 pic.twitter.com/dmIepxpJaj
— Crow (@Crowitzki) July 30, 2021
This led to Love responding on social media and many coming for Colangelo’s head saying that this quote tanked Love’s trade value.
However, for the past two seasons, the Cleveland Cavaliers have actively been trying to trade Love off of their team.
The trade rumors for Love while on the Cavs span even further back to when LeBron James was on the team.
However, since his departure to Los Angeles, Cleveland has been doing whatever they can to deal Love but they have had no luck.
Contract
One of the biggest reasons why there has not been a deal made to get Love out of Cleveland is that he has a massive contract for a player of his age and skill level.
Love is set to make around $60.2 million over the next few years.
This makes his contract too large for contending teams to trade for him to be a third option at best.
Along with this, he does not want to play for a non-contending team.
On The Court Concerns
On top of his contract, Love himself has tanked his trade value.
Over the past three seasons with the Cavaliers, Love has played a total of 103 games.
This insanely high amount of time missed over multiple seasons makes it very tough for contending teams to trade for him.
No team that is trying to win a championship wants to take that large of a risk and take on a contract like Love’s when it is unlikely he will even play for most of the season.
When he does take the court for the Cavs, it is clear that he does not want to be there.
One of these prime examples came in a game against the Toronto Raptors.
Love, clearly frustrated with his Cavalier teammates, swatted a pass from an official onto the court on an inbound right to a Toronto defender.
He then went on to trudge around still out of bounds while the Raptors got an easy three from his boneheaded mistake.
Kevin Love, wyd?
Mark this down as one of the strangest plays in NBA history.
🎥: @Raptorspic.twitter.com/8DQmlVNHIe
— The Athletic (@TheAthletic) April 27, 2021
Moments like these make him a risk to trade for.
He has had a handful of moments like this since Cleveland’s fall from grace.
Contenders do not want to trade for a player who lets their emotions and frustrations lead to no effort and lazy mistakes.
While the Olympics did not do any favors for Love’s trade value, it was already in the toilet before his involvement with Team USA this summer.
