This week on Cavs.com, we celebrate the good works – on and off the floor – of five-time NBA All-Star, 2016 World Champion and recipient of this year’s Arthur Asche Courage Award, Kevin Love.
Love came to Cleveland in a blockbuster deal just before the 2014-15 season and has been a Cavaliers fixture ever since, continuing to put up Hall of Fame numbers despite the squad’s recent youth movement.
Love’s contributions to the Cavaliers can’t be summed up by simple statistics, but here are some of the 12-year veteran’s amazing integers anyway …
7 … points that Kevin Love needs to reach 13,000 for his career.
28 … career games in which Kevin Love has tallied at least 25 points, 15 boards and three made three-pointers – exactly twice as many as his next-closest competitor, Karl-Anthony Towns.
17 … points that Kevin Love scored in the first quarter of a February 3 contest against the Knicks – best by any Cavalier in a single quarter this year.
2 … players in NBA history to tally at least 86 points, 84 rebounds and 24 assists through the first five games of the season – Wilt Chamberlain in 1966 and Kevin Love this past season.
23 … double-doubles that Kevin Love has posted this year, good for 12th in the Eastern Conference and part of the 436 he’s piled up over his career.
8 … players in NBA history who have accumulated at least 12,000 points, 7,000 boards and 1,000 three-pointers – Dirk Nowitzki, Jason Kidd, Kobe Bryant, Paul Pierce, LeBron James, Rasheed Wallace, Antawn Jamison and Kevin Love.
9.8 … rebounds per game that Love averaged this past season – ranking him 8th in the East (and giving the Cavaliers three of the top-eight rebounders, along with Tristan Thompson and Andre Drummond), in the Conference .
16 … rebounds that Kevin Love snagged in the first half of an October 30 win over Chicago – tying the franchise record for boards in a single stanza, set by Anderson Varejao, Elmore Smith and Zydrunas Ilgauskas.
1 … players in NBA history to average at least 10.0 rebounds per game and have hit at least 1,000 three-pointers – Kevin Love.