Love to Portland?

Greg Swartz of Bleacher Report includes a potential trade between the Cleveland Cavaliers and Portland Trail Blazers featuring Kevin Love for Meyers Leonard and Maurice Harkless and a pick in a recent roundup of potential offseason moves. In the piece, Swartz outlines roster moves meant to lift up current superstars, who may need more support from their rosters to lift them over the top. He suggests that Love to Portland could provide needed support for Damian Lillard without costing the Blazers a great deal.

Enter Love, who should be happy to move off a rebuilding Cavaliers team and return to his home area of Lake Oswego, Oregon.

Given Love’s injury history and juicy remaining contract (four years, $120.4 million), the Blazers won’t have to give up McCollum or a great deal of assets. Simply including the expiring contracts of Harkless and Leonard, along with their late first-round pick this season, should do.

Every season, someone in the press floats Kevin Love to Portland, so Rip City should not be surprised by Swartz’s argument. More often than not, they include the tidbit that Love grew up in Lake Oswego, but they rarely mention that Love has expressed preference for Southern California, where he attended college at UCLA.

You can read more here.