Cavs are ready to listen to trade offers for Love? (Love prefers Blazers?)

[SleepingHero]

There are teams that can offer much more. Yes that's true. And he would fit on other teams better.

But if we're focusing on the Mavs,  I don't see why everyone is so down on the fit if you look at it as, Love vs. Powell.  Who is better? The answer is Love in every aspect.  Not debating that there are better fits for that 4/5 position than Love. But if we are simply talking Love for Powell in the lineup then its a no brainer.

For this offense and this team, Powell is basically a less talented version of Love. In every way possible. Besides the 1 or 2 alley oops he converts a game. Why would you not want to upgrade your weakest starter with a supped up version of himself?

The argument of Love vs. Powell isn't so simple as you make it seem. At least when it comes to fit here. Yes, without a doubt, Love is unequivocally the better player vs Powell on the face of it.

But if he were to fill the 5 here, Love can't do a key thing that Powell is elite at, and that's catching lobs. Powell being such a lethal lob threat keeps defenses incredibly honest on Luka's drives. Love has only attempted 1 dunk this entire year, and only 33 layups. In contrast, Of Powell's 98 shot attempts, 80 of them have come as either dunks (45) or layups (35). However, obviously the Mavs wouldn't run Love as a rim-runner, and his most elite skill, shooting, blows Powell out of the water. He's currently at 16ppg, on 44/37/88 which is almost as efficient as Dirk was in his twilight years. Love is a LETHAL shooter. Add onto his fantastic rebounding (10.5rpg), he would be a massive upgrade over Powell there as well 

But at the end of the day the fact that Love can't do that one skill basically transforms this entire offense. Perhaps making a trade like that would force the Mavs to pivot and run KP as the lob catcher and put Love off to shoot the 3. That could theoretically work given how good KP is at catching and finishing, but is such a drastic change smart especially given how well the offense already works? 

If Love was an all-NBA defender then I could see the Mavs swinging a trade and doing something like that, but Love is just as bad as a defender as Powell. Players are shooting 46% when either guarded by Powell or Love.  Its actually quite remarkable how opponents shoot exactly the same against them. 

My biggest reservation is introducing such a massive change like that in the middle of the season, especially given how the Mavs are firing on all cylinders on offense. And then add onto it that Love's contract runs for 3 more years at 30+ million each year, it makes it even harder to stomach.

If the Mavs really wanted to trade for a big contract, CP3 is at least a good defender and is contributing massively to winning right now in OKC. His addition wouldn't change the dynamic of the offense and theoretically would actually add more to the offense than Love, who'd completely change it.