INDIANAPOLIS — Veteran Heat big man Kevin Love could see this coming, this dominant start by the Cleveland Cavaliers, because he was part of how it came together — the part that required patience, perspective and pain,
Rising from the ashes of a LeBron James departure can be one of the most daunting challenges in sports. Of that, the Cavaliers of the early 2010s were more than familiar, as were the Heat of the mid 2010s.
So amid the Cavaliers’ run of early-season 14-0 perfection, Love was asked this past week to reflect and compare how a pair of franchises handled post-LeBron in decidedly different design.
“Obviously there’s a way of going about your own business,” said Love, then with the Cavaliers and now with the Heat. “There’s a certain different ethos; there’s a certain way of doing things.”
The Cavaliers’ way was a race to the bottom, one that had Love in tow, with Cleveland 19-63, 19-46 and 22-50 in the first three seasons after James’ 2018 departure to the Los Angeles Lakers, with two of those seasons shortened by the pandemic.
“It’s a miserable way of life,” Love said.
But also can be a productive way.
By utterly bottoming out, the Cavaliers tanked themselves to be in position to draft Collin Sexton, Darius Garland, Isaac Okoro and Evan Mobley. That cultivated not only a base for the current success but also a trade chip that helped land Donovan Mitchell.
“Cleveland was able to endure,” Love said. “In this league, you’ve got to draft well. You’ve got to acquire assets. They certainly did that, made some great trades and here they sit. So it’s amazing to see. They’re playing really well.”
To a degree, it is the talent amassed during the tankathon that eventually displaced Love from the Cavaliers’ rotation, led to his February 2023 Cleveland buyout that led to his Heat arrival.
Now, amid yet another uneven Heat start to a season, Love was asked about the uniquely NBA notion of having to fall down to eventually rise again,
The difference, he said, is as stark as Cleveland and Miami winters.
What ultimately proved essential for the Cavaliers, he said, shouldn’t be as necessary for the Heat.
“When you’re with the Miami Heat, and me having been on the outside, I know what they’re about,” he said during this ongoing six-game trip that concludes Sunday against the Indiana Pacers. “When I came in, I was told it’s win and win now. Here, it’s win always, right?
“So you can look at a team like Cleveland, you look at a team like Oklahoma City, who have been at the bottom and acquired assets, and now have a long runway to have a lot of success. But is that the answer? I don’t know if I’m equipped to say.
“But I think with teams like that, the market, it throws in a whole different variable, because Miami is a place a lot of players want to play and attracts a lot of stars naturally, being such a great city and a great organization. And then you have teams like Oklahoma City that are smaller markets, that you have to draft well, you have to have those assets and when the time is right you press go.”
What Love said can’t be lost in go-bust thinking is that without draft success, tanking comes with no guarantees.
To that end, he pointed to the Cavaliers’ struggles when James departed for the Heat in 2010, when prime draft picks were utilized by the Cavaliers on the likes of Anthony Bennett and Dion Waiters.
Mostly, Love said to be careful for what you wish for, because constant and abject losing takes a toll, took a toll on the Cavaliers’ roster before James’ return and after his departure.
For the Heat, such thought does not appear in the cards, no sign of willingness to put Bam Adebayo or Tyler Herro through such misery even if Jimmy Butler decides to move on or is moved on.
Love said that’s good, because in that case, misery does not love company, recalling a conversation with Draymond Green during the 2019-20 season, when the Golden State Warriors careened to 15-50 amid injuries to Stephen Curry and Klay Thompson,
“I had a talk with Draymond about it, when Klay and Steph were both hurt,” Love recalled. “We talked about it, how we were going from all these Finals straight, and kind of went from the penthouse to the outhouse in a way. LeBron left, I re-signed, and we were again fighting for those draft spots, which was a tough thing to do and you have to be able to endure it and see the long game. But when you’re in it, sometimes you lose sight of that.”
To their credit, if that is the correct phrasing, the Cavaliers played that long game, which has Love feeling good for his former team.
“We had great people in the front office, still am very close with ownership and their family and a lot of guys that I played with,” Love said. “I left a really good locker room and they were ascending to kind of where they are now.”
IN THE LANE
A WEEK OF MEA CULPAS: Heat coach Erik Spoelstra, in agonizing over the timeout he called that he didn’t have in his team’s overtime loss to the Detroit Pistons, wasn’t alone among NBA coaches in mea culpas this past week. In fact, in the Heat’s game before that loss, it was Minnesota Timberwolves coach Chris Finch who fell on the sword over his team’s inability to protect a late eight-point lead. “I didn’t get it right,” Finch said down the hallway from where the Heat were celebrating Nikola Jovic’s game-winning 3-point play. “Tonight, coming down the stretch, I didn’t get it right. I told you guys that we weren’t always going to get it right, but yeah, if I had to go back and do it over, I’d certainly do it differently.” That Timberwolves loss included a botched potential game-winning play. “That’s on me,” Finch said. “End of the game, I’ve got to be clearer about what we’re trying to do on both sides of the ball.”
AND A REALITY CHECK: The irony of the situation against the Timberwolves was how the tables were turned, when, two games earlier against the Phoenix Suns, the Heat proved unable to even get off a potential game-tying 3-pointer with 4.8 seconds left in a loss to start the road trip that eventually took the Heat to Minnesota. “That’s what’s also silly about this. It’s so results based,” Spoelstra said after the victory in Minnesota. “Run a different action in Phoenix, it could have been a wide-open look. It turned into basically a turnover, and then it’s the worst play. Tonight we score on it and they foul, so then this is a great play. We don’t know if they defended that, if the next layer might have gotten jammed up.”
LUKA 2.0: Next Sunday the Heat will get their first look this season at Luka Doncic, when they host the Dallas Mavericks. To an extent, Spoelstra said the Heat already have gotten a taste of something similar. Asked ahead of the Heat’s game in Detroit about Cade Cunningham, Spoelstra said of the fourth-year guard, “He’s just playing the game on his terms. He’s big enough to do it. He’s got the vision. He’s got the skill set. He can operate in a way where you’re not speeding him up. He’s getting to his spots and he makes the right play over and over, which is unique for a young guy.” Spoelstra added, “In many ways, he plays a similar game to Doncic. He can score, he can set guys up. He’s big enough to make all the plays in the paint.”
POST-OLYMPIC TOUR: In the wake of helping lead Team USA to gold at the Paris Olympics as an assistant to Steve Kerr, Spoelstra routinely has been asked about opponents he coached at the Games. That included last week being asked to reflect on Timberwolves guard Anthony Edwards. “He was sensational in the World Cup,” Spoelstra said of the 2023 event in the Philippines, where he also was an assistant coach. “He had a lot of great performances, not only offensively but he was our best defender and really worked that side of the floor. He has such an engaging personality. He’s really a fun team guy and he’s continuing to get better every single year. What he’s doing this year really is impressive.”
NUMBER
6. Points scored in the final 1.8 seconds of the Heat’s 123-121 overtime loss Tuesday to the Detroit Pistons at Little Caesars Arena. Heat guard Tyler Herro scored on a 6-foot driving bank floater with 1.8 seconds left. Pistons center Jalen Duren scored on a dunk with 1.1 seconds remaining. And Pistons guard Malik Beasley converted a free throw with 1.1 seconds to play and another free throw with one-tenth of a second to play.
