The Wood Shop: Giving Love Love

Kevin Love looks different this season. After having a full off-season where he was able to work out, he’s bigger than he was when he first arrived to the Cavs. According to this profile piece by Lee Jenkins, Love thought the Cavs were going to run like crazy his first year here, so he wanted to get skinny. He dropped all the way down to 240 pounds.

Anyone watching the Cavs knows that this team doesn’t exactly run all the time. They’re more of a slow-it-down-and-grind-you-into-fine-powder team. They’ve ranked in the bottom five of all NBA teams in pace since the Love/LeBron era began.  Kevin recognized the misalignment during the end of the first season, but when he injured his shoulder Kelly Olynyk ripped his arm out in the post season, his weight lifting routines were limited during the off season. He did work on his body though:

Cavs performance director Alex Moore, the former strength and conditioning coordinator for the U.S. ski team, took Love to the squad’s headquarters in Park City, Utah, for six weeks that off-season. Love trained 7,000 feet above sea level but was not allowed to lift anything heavier than 30 pounds. [Lee Jenkins, Sports Illustrated]

This season he’s back, and he’s walking around at 250 pounds. It’s not the 270 he weighed in Minnesota, but it’s a bit more girth to man the post. The Cavs have recognized Love’s hard work and rewarded him with more shots. He’s taking 15.7 shots a night now, which is three more than he took per game last season. And, he’s not just jacking more 3-pointers. He’s actually taking .5 less long shots per game. He’s doing most of his work from the mid-post around the baseline.

So, let’s take a look at the numbers. During last season, just 18.5% of Love’s shot attempts came from the area that isn’t the paint or the 3-line. He shot a healthy 42.5% from there.

2015-2016 Shot Chart

This season Love is taking 26.6% of his shots from the mid-range, and as the green dots show, he’s doing well from the left side lower baseline area. He’s not making as many of those mid-range shots as he did last season, but he’s still hitting above the league’s average.

His shooting distribution is starting to look a lot more like it did during his last season in Minnesota. He’s not working down directly at the rim as much, but he’s no longer camping out at the 3-line. His second year in Cleveland 44.7% of his shots came from downtown. This season 33.1% of his attempts are 3-pointers. His last season in Minnesota 35.1% of his shots were deep ones.

2013-2014 Shot Chart

There are some early season examples plays actually show that his bulk has helped out. Last year, I wrote that Love was one of the best post-up players  (he finished the season in the top three of post-up conversion rate for guys who attempted at least three post-ups a game) because he did a great job of sprinting down the floor, finding his position, and holding it.

He’s just plain battling for position this season and calling for the ball. There’s a great example of this from the second quarter in Cleveland’s game against the 76ers. It’s important to note that on the play before this one, Ersan Ilyasova fouled Love while Love was trying to get to the same spot exact spot on the floor. In the video below, you see Love shouldering in Ersan before J.R. Smith even inbounds the ball. He uses his right shoulder first before shifting to his left shoulder. When he switches to his left shoulder, he’s able to get Ersan on his back because Ersan thinks he might be looking to turn into the middle. Ersan moves to protect Love from going baseline because he knows Embiid is in the paint stopping a possible Love cut to the rim.

Once Ersan is on Love’s back, Love starts to crab walk back and use his butt to completely push Ersan out of position. He forces him between himself and the baseline. Ersan wants to be between Love and the hoop/baseline. Love then catches the ball with his right hand and immediately turns inside to drive. He takes a hard shot from Embiid, but still gets the bucket after one hard dribble. There was no foul called either. Love battled for position for nearly four seconds. He wanted that ball more than anyone else on the floor.

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The best part about all of this is that Love’s uptick in shots isn’t even coming at the expensive of other guys on the Cavs. LeBron James is taking just one less shot a night, and Kyrie Irving is actually taking 2.9 more a night. Tyronn Lue has done a great job of allowing the Cavs to get more possessions in games by moving more quickly. Last season the Cavs had 96.4 possessions a game. That was 26th in the league. To date this season they’ve been getting 101.3 a game, which is 13th in the league.  Of course, a whole season in the top of the league in pace and Kevin might start thinking he needs to slim down again.  I say: stay large, big Kev.

Six games doesn’t make a whole season, but Kevin Love has certainly shown he’s ready to bang down low, and that he wants the ball more than ever. And, so far the Cavs seem to be happy to oblige.