Love To Cavs Leaves Team With No Excuses

Why the Cleveland Cavilers are in such a hurry to win is a bit perplexing.

Are they worried that if they do not walk away with a title with in two years that the hometown hero, King LeBron James, will take a walk again?

Those who are cynical and not the biggest James fans, probably suspect that James has explicitly stated this to management if not secretly added to his contract that if the Cavs do not win now then he is gone.

The reality is likely that the Cavs are super excited, akin to the figurative kid in a candy store, and as opposed to groom two potential superstars in Andrew Wiggins and Anthony Bennett they opted to trade for the guy who is already performing at a superstar level, Kevin Love.

The trade means a lot of things for all involved. For Wiggins and Bennett they will likely get tons of playtime in Minnesota and be the center of the team that the T-Wolves will become or may even already be. It also means that the two young rookies will not have to play in the enormous shadow of James.

From there, a lot of questions arise. How will Love respond to playing in the shadow of James? We have seen before that just because you mash two amazing players together does not mean you will compete for a championship. Simply see the season that the Los Angeles Lakers had two years ago as an example. This question though is one that can only be answered with speculation until the season starts, so let us reserve judgement on this question until then.

There are some things we can accurately predict, though.

The T-Wolves have a free pass. If they do not do well this upcoming season it will be because they are young, but if they simply make the playoffs, the Love trade will look like a genius move on the part of Minnesota management.

There are only two ways that anyone is going to view the Cavs 2014-15 season. If the Cavs win a championship the sports world will view it as a huge success and those of us who are excited to see Love and James play together will say “told ya so.”

But The Cavs fail to win, even if the Cavs nab the Eastern Conference title and lose in the Championship game, the Cavs 2014 preseason moves will be looked at as a failure.

“Why didn’t Cleveland just quit while they were ahead when they picked up James and built there own “Big 3″ with Wiggins, Bennett and James?”  We will all ask.

This was a very risky trade for the Cavs and in a BUSINESS like the NBA, where we even use the connotation of individual players “stock” going up and down, you are only as good as your market, in this case the fans, betting odds and analysts of the world,  say you are.

The Cavs traded away two players that have the potential to be truly great, so they had the reassurance of contending now. They have no excuses, it is either win it all or face the wrath of the judgmental sports world.