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Well, maybe not everyone. The Cavs are also three wins from the title — without Love. They’ve discovered a gritty, anti-modern, defense-first style that demolished the East and came within inches of sweeping the Warriors at home, where Golden State is supposedly invincible. Their success has team executives across the league wondering if Love just isn’t as good as they thought, or whether Cleveland’s success without him is more about LeBron’s presence than Love’s absence. By not playing, Love has become the league’s most confusing and polarizing player.

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Only, Kerr didn’t tell Green he had won the job. “I wanted him to stay motivated,” Kerr says. When Lee returned to practice a few weeks later, he strolled onto the floor with the starters, according to multiple Golden State coaches and players. Green appeared confused. Kerr signaled for Green to take his place, and everyone finally knew: The power forward spot was Green’s. Starting Barnes over Andre Iguodala was Kerr’s plan from the beginning. Starting Green was an accident — a lucky break.

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Love is not a two-way player — at least not now. And even if his defense improves, he’ll never be quick enough to regularly switch onto wings during the pick-and-roll — a skill more coaches crave from big men as the league gets smaller and faster. Most perimeter players can switch among themselves without creating fatal mismatches, but that doesn’t do much good against a pick-and-roll involving a point guard and a big man. A power forward who can switch that play has unique value. He is the pivot point between a normal NBA defense and a switching machine that walls off the paint.

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The deal made sense, given LeBron’s need to win right away and Wiggins’s unproven 3-point shooting — a necessary skill for any wing playing alongside LeBron. But LeBron is winning with this Love-less crew of misfits, and there exists a reality in which the Cavaliers could have kept Wiggins, gained cap flexibility, and snagged Thaddeus Young to serve as Love Lite by simply cutting Minnesota out of the three-way deal that ended up sending Love to Cleveland.5 The Cavs with Wiggins on the wing may never have felt the need to pluck Iman Shumpert and J.R. Smith from the Knicks, but they still could have managed it, and they still might have made the Finals — with a cleaner cap sheet.

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Gilbert is right: The past is unchangeable. Some team will wager on Love rehabilitating his value, and that team will be happy it did — even if it’s Cleveland. This Finals run, to me, is more about LeBron’s singular talent than Love, Irving, offensive rebounding, or anything else. No other player in the league could drag this team where LeBron has dragged it. There may be only three or four guys in NBA history who could have done it.

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Love isn’t as good as we thought he was, especially given how the power forward position is evolving. He probably isn’t a top-eight player. The skeptics were right in that regard.

But he’s still a top-15 or top-20 guy at worst — a true star. If Love opts out this summer, the Cavs could sign-and-trade him to any number of giddy suitors who know their odds of luring Kevin Durant a year from now are less than slim. If Love opts in for next season, he would draw a bonanza of interest in free agency a year from now.

TLDR:

Warriors refused to trade Klay Thompson for Kevin Love.

Warriors were closer to trading Draymond Green and Harrison Barnes for Love, but did not. Minnesota would have been laughed at for taking this deal last summer - but it doesn't look that laughable anymore.

The Cavs play significantly better defense without Kevin Love and is part of the reason they ran through the east and beat GS in Game 2.

Kevin Love's defensive liability has GM's across the league confused as to how valuable Love really is.

Love > Green on offense; but Green > Love on defense.

Should Cleveland max Tristian Thompson instead of keeping Kevin Love (also at a max deal)?

If Love leaves Cleveland, he will have suitors. If he opts in, should Cleveland trade him?

This post was edited on 6/9/15 at 11:36 am