LeBron James' decision in free agency will impact the entire league -- but no team more so than the Cleveland Cavaliers. If he decides to stay, they should remain a contender for the Eastern Conference crown, but if he departs, they'll have no hopes of contention. The stakes don't get much higher than that.
On thing that LeBron is reportedly not impacting, however, is their desire to keep All-Star power forward Kevin Love. According to Dave McMenamin, the Cavs are not shopping Love ahead of the 2018 NBA Draft on Thursday night, and their eagerness to keep him is not related to LeBron's free agency. Via ESPN:
The Cavaliers are not actively shopping All-Star forward Kevin Love heading into Thursday's NBA draft, multiple sources told ESPN on Wednesday. Furthermore, regardless of what decision LeBron James makes about his future in Cleveland, the Cavs have interest in keeping Love next season, sources said.
On the one hand, this makes plenty of sense. Should LeBron leave, Love would easily be the team's best player. And unless they plan to just tear everything down and go to a complete rebuild, you need good players. The reason this is noteworthy, though, is because the Cavs haven't always been so keen on keeping Love around.
The power forward has been involved in trade rumors pretty much since the day he arrived in Cleveland. Most notably, he was nearly involved in a potential Paul George trade last summer. Though that, of course, did not end up happening.
