Newly acquired power forward Kevin Love expects to enjoy a “sizable role” with the Miami Heat, and Bam Adebayo has made it clear that he expects quite a lot out of his new teammate.
Love took to Instagram to celebrate to the move to South Florida.
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In the comments section of that post, Adebayo made it abundantly clear what his expectations of Love are now that he’s on the Heat.
Love’s production has been down this season, and he’d been out of the Cavs lineup since the end of January. However, as recently as last season, Love was proving that he has what it takes to be a productive member of a talented roster.
During the 2021-22 campaign, Love averaged 13.6 points, 7.2 rebounds and 2.2 assists per game while hitting 43.0 percent of his field goals and 39.2 percent of his 3-pointers. He did that while coming off the bench in all but four of the 74 games that he appeared in.
He played 22.5 minutes per game last season. It will be interesting to see if his playing time goes up now that he’s with the Heat. Given their dire need at the power forward position, it seems quite possible that Love will see a really healthy increase in playing time.
So far, the Heat’s 2022-23 campaign has been one of ups and downs. They started out the season with a rash of losses and were 7-11 after their first 18 games. Since then, they’ve trended in the right direction. They even had a 32-25 record with two games left before the All-Star break.
Unfortunately, those final two games resulted in two losses — one to the Denver Nuggets and another to the new-look Brooklyn Nets.
Now, Love, Adebayo and the rest of the Heat’s roster are going to have to make sure that the final slate of games goes well. Right now, the Heat are right in the middle of the pack in the Eastern Conference.
They are currently a half-game back from the No. 6 seed New York Knicks. Luckily, they’ve got some cushion behind them and are three games ahead of the No. 8 seed Atlanta Hawks.
