Even in Another All-Star Season, Love Still Facing the Blame
Kevin Love has had a whirlwind past few days, what began as him leaving a game with an illness has spun into the locker room turning against him. Reports began swirling on Monday night about the entire organization having a meeting on airing out their grievances with the team currently. This then turned into many on the team, including new member Isaiah Thomas, questioning Love about his illness, leaving the game and commitment to the team. Obviously, Love taking the blame for all the Cavs problem isn’t a new thing, but in a season where Love has been the second-best player and made his second consecutive All-Star team as a member of the Cavs, is the blame justified?
The Cleveland Cavaliers held an emotional team meeting prior to Monday’s practice, where several players challenged the legitimacy of Kevin Love leaving OKC loss on Saturday ill and missing Sunday’s practice, league sources tell ESPN.
— Adrian Wojnarowski (@wojespn) January 23, 2018
Love is having arguably his best season since coming to Cleveland in the summer of 2014, taking over the role of LeBron’s number two after the Kyrie Irving trade. He has been able to deliver on the court with a stat line of 18.4 points per game and 9.4 rebounds per game. He’s also been able to be more efficient than ever this season with the Cavs shooting career highs in field goal percentages from two-point range. Love is having another all-star season and yet he’s taking the blame from all over the locker room; it doesn’t seem to make any sense, yet we see it year after year.
The question is why?
Love has never been a guy to say much to the media. During his pre and post game interviews Love always gives pretty standard answers and doesn’t usually give much into off the court issues. This could be one of the reasons that Love gets called out as much as he does because other players know he won’t take his problems to the media. Love has always handled himself incredibly professionally in front of the mic and has never been one to stir the pot with something he said in an interview.
Another reason Love may take a lot of blame is that he hardly uses social media. Love has never been the type of player to send Twitter into a blaze with one of his own tweets, but we do know Twitter has become ablaze with tweets about him. Due to level at which Love uses social media other players may have found it easier to say something about him on it, knowing there’s probably no chance he will respond.
Kevin Love has been nothing short of fantastic since coming to Cleveland both on and off the court. During his time here, he’s made two all-star teams and helped deliver that glorious title to Cleveland, yet has still never gotten the praise he truly deserved. In my lifetime of watching sports, I have never seen another athlete year in and year out deal with more drama than Love. Whether it’s being called out by the team in meetings, getting aired out on twitter or constantly being involved in a trade rumor, Love has somehow managed to handle it all with class.
Image courtesy of newbently.com
Follow the author: DanLukas12
