Where is the Love

As the NBA gets closer to its off-season, there are many possible moves that would shake up the league.

Forget about if the Heat are able to keep their “Big 3” and who would lure all-star Carmelo Anthony away from New York, this year’s potential off-season move is all about love.

Kevin Love has spent the past six seasons as the Minnesota Timberwolves’ franchise player and has established himself as one of the best big men in the game today.

In just 364 career games, the 6-11 power forward has averaged 19.2PPG, and 12.2RPG while shooting and impressing 45% from the field over his young NBA career.

Love’s numbers have put him in elite company with some of the best players in the game, but his glamorous numbers has not helped improve the struggling Timberwolves’ winning percentage over the past few seasons.

 Throughout Love's career with the Timberwolves, Love has yet to experience the NBA postseason with the Timberwolves’ whose last playoff berth came in 2004.

Since drafting Love back in 2008, the overall record for Minnesota in six seasons has been a dreadful 153-323.

According to multiple sources around the league, Love as made it clear that after next season; the three-time all-star will not resign with the Timberwolves, which is not a big surprise.

Now, the best option for the Timberwolves is to trade Love before the 2015 trade deadline next season and try to acquire some asset other than losing their franchise player for nothing in the off-season.

With so many teams trying to pursue Love this off-season, the “Kevin Love Sweepstakes” has already begun and the love is felt all over the league.

Many teams around the association who are in the “Kevin Love Sweepstakes” are potential NBA title contenders like the Bulls, Rockets, and Warriors who are at the top of the list to make a hard push to require Love in an off-season trade this summer.

Other teams that are in the hunt for Love are non-playoffs teams like the Cavaliers, Celtics and Kings, who believe that trading for Love will make them become playoff teams for the future.

The biggest question for teams who are looking to require Love all share the same shared problem. Whichever team is willing to trade for Love is taking a huge risk without his assurance that he will sign a long turn deal to remain with the team.

One team that is taking the risk on Love is the Los Angeles Lakers, who dealt with a similar situation once before with Dwight Howard. After trading for Howard in the summer of 2012, he left the Lakers this past off-season to sign a four year deal with the Houston Rockets.

However, the one advantage that the Lakers may have in favor to assure that Love will resign is that he is a native of Los Angeles and playing for the Lakers Love will be returning back home.

As of now it is not clear whether or not the Timberwolves are open to trading Love before the start of next season or before the trade deadline, but one thing is clear, whichever team win the “Kevin Love Sweepstakes” will become elite title contenders for years to come.