Does the Cavs Title Mean Kevin Love Stays in Cleveland? No.

When the Cavs were down 3-1 to the Warriors and Kevin Love was an abomination at both ends, the talk was of LeBron Cleveland trading the $120 million power forward.

Boston? The Knicks? Houston? Anywhere but Cleveland made all the sense in the world.

But then LeBron and Kyrie Irving took over, and the Cavs won three straight and Cleveland captured the title. Love was impressive in 30 minutes on the court in Game 7 – nine points, 14 rebounds – but was mostly useless in Finals.

His regular season numbers (16 ppg, 9.9 rpg) cratered after leaving Minnesota (26.1 ppg, 12.2 rpg) – which is similar to what we saw from Chris Bosh when he left Toronto for Miami – but there are two pivotal things to think about when pondering Love’s future:

A) The Cavs can’t get better because they have no cap room and no draft picks. The only way they can improve? Trading someone with value. That’s Kevin Love. You’re not trading Kyrie Irving. There aren’t enough quality spare parts to cobble together and land a difference-maker, even with the salary cap going up.

B) Does Kevin Love want to be someone who “gets out of the way” and “runs to the corner” – as he told ESPN’s Zach Lowe – when it matters? Or be another third wheel who becomes a whipping boy when things go wrong?

Combine these two and you’ve got LeBron being able to trade Love for one of his buddies – be it Carmelo Anthony or Chris Paul or someone else. Boy did Kyrie Irving look good off the ball in the NBA playoffs …