On Monday, Cleveland Cavaliers GM David Griffin told ESPN 850 AM in Cleveland, "We've never once put together an offer involving Kevin [Love], nor have we taken a call on an offer for Kevin."
Griffin's declarative stance hasn't stopped speculation about whether trading Love might be the answer to the trouble the Cavaliers have had beating the Golden State Warriors and San Antonio Spurs head-to-head this season. After Griffin fired head coach David Blatt last week and replaced him with assistant Tyronn Lue, despite a 30-11 record, we know almost anything is on the table, if Cleveland believes it could help the team win a championship.
So should the Cavaliers consider trading Love?
Answering that question requires digging into Love's impact at both ends of the court.
Love's shooting helps the offense even when he isn't scoring
Since he teamed up with LeBron James and Kyrie Irving in Cleveland, Love has shifted to a complementary role different than the one he played while starring for the Minnesota Timberwolves, which has led to concerns about whether he needs to "fit in" rather than "fit out."
The Cavaliers seemed to find a better balance while Irving was sidelined by his recovery from a fractured patella suffered during the NBA Finals. Before Irving returned Dec. 20, Love had used 24.4 of the team's plays, according to NBA.com/stats.
With Irving healthy, Love's usage rate has shrunk to 21.5 percent, which is lower than his mark in 2014-15. His efficiency as a scorer has also gone down. Since Irving's return, Love is making only 43.8 percent of his 2-point attempts, which is down from 48.4 percent.
It's certainly a bit of a waste for the Cavaliers to use Love primarily as a spot-up shooter. What's important to remember, however, is that Love's ability to pull opposing defenders away from the basket helps the Cleveland offense, regardless of whether he's actually scoring. Because of his reputation as a shooter, Love has high gravity, which opens things up for his teammates.
I noted recently when writing about the Love-Andrew Wiggins trade that James has been a more accurate shooter with Love on the court the past two seasons. He's not alone.
Via NBAwowy.com, here are the effective field goal percentages (which weight 3-pointers as 1.5 field goals to reflect their additional value) for all Cavaliers regulars with and without Love in 2015-16.
Even if Love's role isn't maximizing his own impact, he is still helping Cleveland on offense. The Cavaliers have been much better with both James and Love; they have posted a 112.1 offensive rating with both players on the court, per NBA.com/stats (which would be good for second in the league this season behind Golden State), as compared to only 104.5 points per 100 possessions with James alone.
There's little statistical evidence that Love is a bad defender
Love's defense was under the microscope last week, when the Warriors carved up Cleveland's trapping defense and Love was occasionally left flailing, rather than in position to stop pick-and-rolls.
Alas, this isn't quite the same as when lowlight Vines indicted James Harden's defense two seasons ago and advanced statistics convicted it, to borrow a phrase from ESPN's Fran Fraschilla. The statistical evidence continues to suggest Love is an adequate defender at worst.
ESPN's real plus-minus ranks Love 14th defensively among power forwards this season and 2.3 points per 100 possessions better than an average player. (Note that average is calibrated among all positions; power forwards are typically better than average on defense.)
In general, the Cavaliers have defended well with Love on the court this season. Cleveland has been stout when Love teams up with Tristan Thompson instead of Timofey Mozgov; in such cases, the team allows 97.9 points per 100 possessions, according to NBA.com/stats. Only the San Antonio Spurs have posted a better defensive rating over the course of the season.
How can we reconcile the team's performance with how bad Love occasionally looks on defense? One explanation is that the things Love does well defensively don't translate to video.
Throughout his career, Love has excelled at defensive rebounding and avoiding fouls. Lo and behold, those two areas are where the Cavaliers' defense is better with him on the court.
Cleveland has rebounded 79.9 percent of opponents' missed shots with Love on the court, per NBA.com/stats, which would be the second-highest mark in NBA history after this year's Spurs (80.7 percent). Although rebounding isn't always considered part of individual defense, Love is a major plus in that phase of the Cavs' ability to get stops.
The Cavaliers' free throw rate improves from .329 free throw attempts per field goal attempt with Love on the bench -- which would be the league's worst rate -- to .25 when he plays, which would rank fifth-best in the league.
A GIF of Love boxing out or not fouling an opponent is unlikely to go viral. But those plays count just the same when it comes to stopping opponents from scoring.
Love is not the problem against the Spurs and Warriors -- and might be the solution
Despite everything I've written, I was prepared to concede that Love's defense might be good enough against 28 teams but is not good enough against Golden State and San Antonio, given the challenges their ball movement and execution pose for defenses. There's only one problem with this theory: Cleveland has played better against both teams with Love on the floor.
In two losses to the Warriors, the Cavaliers have been outscored by 15.2 points per 100 possessions with Love on the court, which isn't good but is a whole lot better than the 27.1 points per 100 possessions by which they've been outscored without Love.
In their previous meeting at San Antonio, which visits Quicken Loans Arena on Saturday (ABC/WatchESPN, 8:30 p.m. ET), Cleveland was actually plus-six in Love's 37 minutes. That was second on the team to James' plus-nine. That advantage was lost during the six minutes both players spent on the bench, in which the Spurs outscored the Cavaliers 14-8.
During the two recent games against the West powers, Blatt made limited use of what has been the team's best combination this season: James at power forward and Love at center. In 101 minutes in 2015-16, the James-Love frontcourt has outscored opponents by 21.9 points per 100 possessions.
Although that sample size obviously isn't large enough to draw any firm conclusions, the combo has been effective enough to merit more usage. Yet Blatt never used James and Love together up front against the Spurs, and he did so for only two minutes against the Warriors, during which the Cavaliers outscored Golden State by two points. (The James-Love frontcourt played even with the Warriors during seven minutes in the fourth quarter of the Christmas Day game Golden State won by four points.)
Instead of using Love at center against the Warriors in the latest meeting, Blatt favored lineups with James at power forward and Thompson in the middle. That combination has been outscored by 17 points in 22 minutes against Golden State this season.
Should the Cavaliers trade Love?
Perhaps the more important part of Griffin's quote was what he said to explain why he wasn't actively looking to trade Love: "You'd have to go a long way to convince me that we're a better team winning in the Finals without a player like Kevin on our team."
That's the test for any Love trade. Although you can find a few players around the league, such as Paul Millsap, Chris Bosh and Serge Ibaka, who might match Love's offensive contributions and provide more defensive versatility, those players aren't likely to be available.
Trading Love for a lesser talent would solve a problem that the numbers suggest doesn't really exist.