Before the Cleveland Cavaliers signed Kevin Love to a contract extension last summer, they had a potential trading partner in the Portland Trail Blazers, Mike Richman said on the Locked On Blazers podcast.
Richman says that the Blazers approached the Cavaliers about Love in spite of the fact that they didn't have any cap space. However, they had a trade exception that they could have used to absorb some big salary.
However, Cleveland was not intrigued by the idea and eventually ended up signing Love to a four-year, $120 million extension.
The Blazers ultimately went into the 2018-19 campaign with virtually the same team they had a year ago and were a rather pleasant surprise, winning 53 games and notching the third seed in the Western Conference.
Portland then went on to defeat the Oklahoma City Thunder in the first round of the playoffs before upsetting the Denver Nuggets in the second round. The Blazers then proceeded to suffer a sweep at the hands of the Golden State Warriors, but it marked the first time Portland had made the Western Conference Finals since 2000, when it famously lost to the Los Angeles Lakers in seven games.
The Blazers certainly could have used a player like Love this season, as his ability to space the floor would have fit perfectly with Damian Lillard and C.J. McCollum and would have made him the perfect frontcourt partner for Jusuf Nurkic, who ultimately ended up missing the postseason as a result of a gruesome broken leg injury.
Nevertheless, Portland will enter another offseason of uncertainty, as the Blazers once again don't have a whole lot of flexibility.
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