Kevin Love looks as if he is going to be calling Cleveland home for the 2014-2015 season. Love has spent his entire six-year career in Minnesota, longing for a playoff berth at the very minimum. Too bad for Minnesota and Love, the Timberwolves couldn’t clinch a spot in the postseason even once with Love on its roster. Fast forward to summer 2014. Love wants out and LeBron James heads back to Cleveland, thus creating a want for star players such as Love to join him. Love has been rumored to go be headed different teams such as the Lakers, Bulls and Warriors but it’s the Cavs of all teams that have a deal in place with the stubborn Wolves to acquire the all star.

Kevin Love seems headed to Cleveland, will he Kryie Irving and LeBron help Cleveland finally win a title?

In a deal that will send #1 overall picks Andrew Wiggins and Anthony Bennett along with a first round pick, the Cavs somehow got the Wolves to agree. It’s not the Warriors proposition of David Lee, Harrison Barnes and Klay Thompson but it’s a close second right? The Wolves didn’t want to end up like many other teams and call Love on his bluff only to have him leave Minnesota without getting anything back for him. With Love presumably on his way to Cleveland to join LeBron James and fellow all star Kyrie Irving, the question now comes about, which big three featuring LeBron is better? LeBron James, Dwayne Wade, and Chris Bosh or LeBron James, Kevin Love, and Kyrie Irving?  I would also like to point out that although LeBron had much of the spotlight during his time in Miami and it was well deserved but Dwayne Wade was the most crucial player on those teams. The two seasons that Wade played up to his ability the result was a title, coincidence? I don’t think so.

The new big three in Cleveland is much more of a shooting bunch with Love and Kyrie but adding LeBron to that mix with his excellent passing skills should put fear into opposing defenses. Plus this new big three is much younger being that LeBron probably won’t have to worry about any teammates’ knees going out after every game. Many may look at the two big threes and break them down and compare stats and how they predict the new one will do but for me, the answer to the question shouldn’t even be a thought.

Kevin Love has been in the league six seasons; Kyrie Irving has been in for three for what do they have to show for those seasons? Neither one of them has even played in one single playoff game, not one. I understand that neither had much help on their respective rosters but the point remains the same, there is no individual winning whatsoever from either of them. It’s an unfair comparison, but Kobe Bryant carried a team with Kwame Brown and Smush Parker in the starting lineup to the playoffs and almost a playoff series win. Looking at the Miami big three, when LeBron joined Dwayne Wade had won a title with several playoff appearances and Bosh also had a few sightings in the postseason with the Raptors. Of course being fair to at least Kyrie, he has only been in the NBA for a few seasons but the Miami big three was light-years ahead of LeBron’s new one in Cleveland.

The Cavs are on the rise and could prove me wrong but for now at least, LeBrons’ old gig gave him more of a chance to win a title in the next season or two.

Even before Dwight Howard joined the Lakers many fans and members of the media looked to the 2014 off-season as a chance for the purple and gold to make a splash and start focusing their personnel moves on their post-Kobe Bryant days. Going into the 2013-2014 season with absolutely no hope of a championship, the Lakers stuck to their “plan” by signing a large majority of their roster to 1-year contracts to preserve the cap space they would enjoy the following offseason. Once the 2014 offseason hits, the Lakers will only have three players on their salary cap giving them flexibility to do what they want. But the real question is, what should the Lakers do with all that cap space?

If the front office is patient and handles the 2014 off-season correctly, it may only be a few seasons until the Lakers return to the White House. By Lawrence Jackson [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons

My plan would be to save the cap space, despite how Kobe Bryant might feel about it, and save it for the 2015 and 2016 off seasons in order to more-thoroughly return the team to its rightful place atop the NBA. First off, the Lakers will be getting a top pick in the 2014 NBA Draft, which is linked to being one of the deepest drafts in recent memory and might eventually be compared to the historic 2003 draft (we hope Jerry West was wrong). So they will more than likely get a young star in the making to put alongside Kobe for the 2014-2015 season. Once the following offseason starts, however, the fun begins. Such players as Kevin Love, LaMarcus Aldridge and Marc Gasol will be free agents come 2015 and many expect the Lakers to snag Love, who played at UCLA, from Minnesota.

Wait another offseason, which could mean post-Kobe, and the 2016 free agent class is even better. With such players scheduled to become free agents as Kevin Durant, Kyrie Irving, Anthony Davis, Damian Lillard and others, the Lakers could put themselves in position to return to championship contention within a few seasons simply by being patient in free agency for a few years. The two names most heavily linked to the purple and gold are Kevin Love and Kyrie Irving, which matched together, could be a deadly combination for opponents.

As for the fans, we might need to bite the bullet on next season as well in order to potentially celebrate another title a few seasons later. Those of us in the seats as well as the Lakers front office should realize that. The one problem is that the pressure of an impending Kobe Bryant retirement may put the Lakers in an awkward situation and they may push the panic button and sign a player like Carmelo Anthony this offseason. Nothing against Carmelo — he is a great player — but the best thing for the Lakers future would be to wait for now and use the cap space in future off-seasons.

Watching hopes crumble in a Hollywood (Hollyweird if you’re from Cali) fashion is best suited for an American TV landscape where reality is as popular as a colonoscopy.

Enter the surreal. Worlds where Jersey Shore and steroids are the barometers by which we judge the nature of reality.

The one year anniversary marking the Cavaliers messy fall from grace to that of NBA serfdom is not only a sour topic for its last remnants of fandom, but a juicy one as well.

LeBron James—the God turned dark satanic villain—is the caricature that never sleeps. In fact he is the group of spring breakers who party next door for the entire night: pounding the walls an bumping their jams. 

His desolation of a city is still inconceivable and for that unforgivable, not to mention, his new menage-twois in South Beach is a fornication of talent that is ripping apart the league at its seams.

This fuel for the fire, is a hot topic for sport pundits all across America. Alone James has altered the NBA world forever like a fault line moves the earth’s ecology.

Unfortunately, the organic evolution an NBA champion is now a distant memory for the multi-generational sports fan. For my father it is every reason why he is now more in tuned with a dog and pony show than that of the NBA Finals.

Last he checked the mid-thigh short was far too long, the mullet haircut and the Burt Reynolds mustache trend setting masterpieces and Slice the leader in pop.

But today, good luck finding an athlete whose shorts aren’t slung at the ankles, making a fortune on a series of linked sex tapes or masquerading on an MTV pop reality show.

For this reason alone, I am hopeful that an NBA lockout can help redirect a league that as been starring in a series of Lost. Every which way I turn there is a Tim Donoughy scandal or a new issue defacing the Lakers franchise with a picture of Lamar and Chloe Odom.

The guaranteed contract and the easy movements of the free agent, have defiled the puritanical originations of this great game. Making players work for their money not only holds them accountable, but quite honestly, weeds out the nay- sayers.

If Deron Williams cannot come to the table and arrange his life to help the greater good than I say go, go as far away as possible and never leave Turkey. Sorry Nets fans.

For Cavaliers fans I am eagerly hopeful. The Heatles were ousted by a Mavericks team of role guys, and their leader Dirk Nowitiski is a hardworking floor general with the genuine heart of a champion.

This is sweet revenge for fans that for seven years fell under the spell of LeBron James nicities. Happily, for an entire off-season they get to watch the star wallow in his defunct narcissism and mock his tainted legacy. 

If they are to redirect their own franchise it IS now or never. Sending away a player like J. J Hickson to the Kings for Omri Cassapi was a move in the right direction. Hickson is up for a max contract come next June, and to be honest, he reminded too many fans anyways of LeFraud.

His 13.8 points per game were a freckle on the vast expanse of what Gilbert and many upper management leads thought he was capable of. With the drafting of Tristan Thompson, it was a perfect ridding to head in a positive direction.

Yet this exodus is still in need of a little more magic.

Ridding the bloated contract of equally Hollywood adoring Baron Davis will be difficult but necessary. A player bobbing on 1/4 knee is without question unworthy of the 13 million dollars owed him next season.

His days of leading a team with an insatiable will to get to the hoop are long, long gone, and his oft-uncoachable attitude is grossly distasteful. Watching him come to camp over weight and sit with injuries in Los Angeles was bad enough. But what was worse, was what he did with his free time. 

While “rehabbing,” Davis was guest starring in multiple TV series. Hiring an agent in the process, Davis continued to work on his entertainment direction, while collecting a mega sized paycheck from the Clippers.

Sending the Hollywood cast-off to a playoff franchise in need of a new general or a back up point guard not only frees up cap space to sign free agents in the future but does away with an unneeded headache.

Entering, the number one pick Kyrie Irving, an unproven Coach K disciple, and the team at the least has a new face to adore. Though I am admittedly skeptical of the kid’s hype, I am enriched by his humility to the situation.

Not once has he self-aggrandized or touted his worthiness, but instead, smiled and acted happy at his fortune to play in one of the league’s greatest cities.

This interview on draft night proves the kid’s willingness to play as a part of a team and his desire to “fit in” with the organization. His kind-hearted nature and desire to look past the LeFraud pressures is worthy of recognition.

Most importantly he is extremely gifted. With a wonderful step back jump shot, skilled three point shooting and ability to get in the key for drop off passes to bigs, Irving is the right direction for a team looking to renew itself.

For the City of Cleveland and Dan Gilbert, a new sense of self could be emerging. On the horizon, just one year later, there are coming showers of hope.

Fresh off of one of the worst splits in NBA history, LeFraud will forever be in moral limbo rethinking his divorce from the city that loved him first. 

For the rest of us, and most importantly Cavs fans, clarity and vision are the very things to populate a 2nd anniversary, a revival with far more glory than the one that was here before.