The Cleveland Cavaliers have been mentioned in trade rumors that involve Carmelo Anthony and Kevin Love. It makes a lot of sense in one way. LeBron James and Anthony have been friends for a long time, and the Cavaliers have struggled incorporating Love’s skills into their scheme.
Carmelo has claimed that he won’t exercise his trade clause to go anywhere, but a phone call from LeBron would probably change that.
Here is why the Cavaliers shouldn’t trade Love. They don’t know what their ceiling with him is yet. He hurt his shoulder during the first round of last year’s playoffs, and he is getting much better looks in the offense since David Blatt was fired.
The New York Knicks would receive Timofey Mozgov along with draft picks in the potential trade, and the Boston Celtics would likely be involved as well making it a three-team exchange.
If Anthony wants to win a championship, then he should push for the trade to happen as hard as possible. This might be his last chance, but Cleveland shouldn’t give up on Love yet. He may not be the shooter that Carmelo is, but Love is an excellent passer, post player and rebounder. Anthony leaves a lot to be desired on the defensive end, and his rebounding skills are suspect. The Cavaliers would go through a lot of growing pains if they added him to the lineup so late in the season, and it could cost them another chance at getting to the NBA Finals. The superstar made some interesting comments on Friday during All-Star media day.
“I think everybody kind of dreams and hopes that they can play with another great player, another star player. It’s a star player’s league,” Anthony said to the New York Daily News. “I think that’s what we talk about when we all get together — ‘I want to play with you, I want to play with you.’ Even here different guys say, ‘Come play with me, come play with me.’ So that’s always the mindset. Sometimes it happens, sometimes it don’t. But I think everybody that’s in my situation, that’s in my position, they all want the load off especially the older they get. Because you realize you just can’t do it all by yourself.”
Doesn’t that sound like a man who wants to move on from his current organization? The Celtics have multiple first-round picks, and their best one used to belong to the Brooklyn Nets. This means that it will likely be a lottery pick which has to be appealing to Phil Jackson. The Knicks and Carmelo must try to make this deal go through, but the Cavaliers should keep their core together for at least one more postseason.
