Kevin Love was used to being the centerpiece of the offense with the Minnesota Timberwolves. The star forward averaged well over a double-double in three of his past four seasons, but those numbers are expected to drop this season when he plays alongside LeBron James and Kyrie Irving. Chris Bosh knows how Love is about to feel.
Bosh, who was also a double-double machine with the Toronto Raptors before heading to Miami, recently told Ethan Skolnick of Bleacher Report that not getting the ball as much — or having your “pick of the buffet” as Skolnick phrased it — can be extremely frustrating.
“You just get your entree and that’s it,” Bosh said. “It’s like, wait a minute, I need my appetizer and my dessert and my drink, what are you doing? And my bread basket. What is going on? I’m hungry! It’s a lot different. But if you can get through it, good things can happen. But it never gets easy. Even up until my last year of doing it, it never gets easier.”
Two championships and four NBA Finals appearances made it easier on Bosh, and the goal of winning a title should allow Love to remain focused even when he isn’t his team’s top scorer. Still, Bosh described playing with other superstars as a “psychological battle.”
“It’s going to be very difficult for (Love),” he said. “Even if I was in his corner and I was able to tell him what to expect and what to do, it still doesn’t make any difference. You still have to go through things, you still have to figure out things on your own. It’s extremely difficult and extremely frustrating. He’s going to have to deal with that.”
Two weeks ago, Love said he learned about unselfishness by watching players like Bosh in the NBA Playoffs.
“I’d be lying to myself and lying to everybody here if I was telling you I didn’t have to sacrifice,” Love said. “I think it’s going to have to be an effort throughout the entire team to do what’s best for the Cleveland Cavaliers. And we don’t know what that is really yet. But I’m going to do what’s best for this team to win, because at the end of the day that’s what we want, is to win.”
Touching the ball less is always going to be difficult when you’re used to being the focal point of an offense. But touching it less because the best player on the planet is touching it more is an ideal situation. Love shouldn’t have much problem accepting that.
