Kevin Love

• 1. Introduction

  ›

  Kevin Love's uncle is Mike Love, a co-founder of the Beach Boys. His cousins Brian Wilson, Carl Wilson, and Dennis Wilson were also founding members of the same group. Love was born on the 7th of September 1988, in Santa Monica, California, into a family that touched two distinctly American traditions: professional basketball and rock and roll. His father Stan played in the NBA. His middle name, Wesley, honors Wes Unseld, the Hall of Fame center who was a close family friend.

  Love grew up in Lake Oswego, Oregon. He went on to win an NBA championship with the Cleveland Cavaliers and earn five All-Star selections. His legacy also extends well beyond basketball. What made Kevin Love one of the most statistically unusual power forwards of his generation? And how did a champion become equally known for what he chose to say off the court?

• 2. Roots and Rivalries

  ›

  Klay Thompson and Kevin Love were Little League teammates in Lake Oswego, Oregon. Two future NBA stars grew up on the same fields. Love's training as a young player was intensive and deliberate. His father Stan pushed him to develop outside shooting and ballhandling. Love also studied game film of Wes Unseld and practiced bounce passes with a cardboard box.

  In his sophomore season at Lake Oswego High School, Love averaged 25.3 points, 15.4 rebounds, and 3.7 assists per game. That summer, Nike removed him from its Portland Elite Legends AAU team after he chose to attend the Reebok ABCD Camp. He joined the Southern California All-Stars and helped them go 46-0 while earning three MVP awards.

  Love's junior-year state championship game produced 24 points and 9 rebounds, and Lake Oswego won the title. As a senior, he averaged 33.9 points, 17.0 rebounds, and 4 assists per game. Lake Oswego returned to the championship game but lost to South Medford High School. Love scored 37 points in that game, but his rival Kyle Singler and South Medford prevailed. Love closed his high school career as the all-time leading scorer in Oregon boys' basketball history, with 2,628 points. He was named the Gatorade National Male Athlete of the Year.

  He committed verbally to UCLA in July 2006. Oregon fans, expecting him to attend his father's alma mater, reacted with hostility. Before a game in Eugene, Ducks fans obtained Love's cell phone number and left him death threats. They also threw garbage at his family during the game and directed obscenities at them. The episode led to wider discussion about whether fan behavior in college basketball had become too extreme.

  At UCLA, Love sought out retired Bruins legends Bill Walton and John Wooden for advice on the game. Walt Hazzard gave him permission to wear the number 42, which the school had retired for Hazzard in 1996. Love led the Bruins that season with 17.5 points and 10.6 rebounds per game and 23 double-doubles. He helped UCLA reach the Final Four of the 2008 NCAA tournament. He was named consensus first-team All-American and Pac-10 Player of the Year. On the 17th of April 2008, he announced he would leave UCLA and enter the NBA draft.

• 3. The Stretch Four

  ›

  On the 12th of November 2010, Kevin Love grabbed 31 rebounds against the New York Knicks, setting a Timberwolves franchise record. No player had posted a 30-30 game since Moses Malone did in 1982. Love was the 19th player in league history to accomplish the feat. His 31 rebounds were also the most by any player since Charles Barkley grabbed 33 in 1996.

  Love led the NBA in rebounding that season at 15.2 per game. He also made 41.7 percent of his three-point attempts, nearly three per game. Traditional power forwards were expected to protect the paint. Perimeter players shot from the arc. Love operated at an elite level on both sides of that divide.

  His consecutive double-double streak that season ended at 53 games on the 13th of March 2011. It was the longest such run since the ABA-NBA merger in 1976, surpassing Moses Malone's mark of 51 from 1979-80. Love came within two of Elvin Hayes's record of 55, set in 1973-74. According to the Elias Sports Bureau, Wilt Chamberlain holds the all-time mark with 227 consecutive double-doubles, set from 1964-67.

  Love won the NBA Most Improved Player Award at the end of that season. He had raised his scoring by 44 percent and his rebounding by 38 percent over the previous year. He became the first player to average at least 20 points and 15 rebounds in a season since Malone.

  Love posted a career-high 51 points in a 149-140 double-overtime loss to the Oklahoma City Thunder the following season. He won the Three-Point Contest on the 25th of February 2012, defeating Kevin Durant in a final tiebreaker round. In 2013-14, his final season in Minnesota, Love set an NBA record. He became the first player in history to record 2,000 points, 900 rebounds, and 100 three-pointers in a single season.

• 4. The Cleveland Years

  ›

  On the 23rd of August 2014, the Timberwolves sent Love to Cleveland in a three-team deal involving Philadelphia. Andrew Wiggins and Anthony Bennett went to Minnesota. Love joined a team that already featured LeBron James and Kyrie Irving.

  Kelly Olynyk yanked Love's arm in Game 4 against the Boston Celtics in his first Cleveland playoff series, dislocating his left shoulder. Love called it a "bush-league play." The league suspended Olynyk for one game after ruling that he had yanked Love's arm. The Cavaliers swept Boston 4-0 but fell to Golden State in the 2015 Finals with Love sidelined.

  Love re-signed with Cleveland on the 9th of July 2015, agreeing to a five-year, $110 million contract. The 2015-16 Cavaliers went 57-25 and entered the playoffs as the Eastern Conference's top seed. Their Finals opponent was the defending champion Golden State Warriors. Love suffered a concussion in Game 2 that kept him out of Game 3. With Cleveland down 3-1, he managed nine total points in Games 5 and 6 on 2-for-8 shooting. Cleveland won both games. In Game 7, Love finished with 9 points and 14 rebounds as the Cavaliers won 93-89.

  Cleveland became the first team to rally from a 3-1 Finals deficit. The championship ended a 52-year major sports drought in the city. Love's defense on league MVP Stephen Curry in the final minutes of Game 7 was widely credited as a decisive factor in the win.

  Love signed a four-year, $120 million extension on the 24th of July 2018. He appeared in the first four games of the regular season before a left foot injury required surgery in November. Multiple injuries limited his appearances over the next several seasons. He transitioned into a reserve role in 2021-22, averaging 13.6 points, 7.2 rebounds, and 2.2 assists. He finished as runner-up for the NBA Sixth Man of the Year Award.

  On the 18th of February 2023, Love and the Cavaliers agreed to a contract buyout. He signed with the Miami Heat within days and appeared in his fifth NBA Finals in five career playoff appearances.

• 5. Everyone Is Going Through Something

  ›

  In November 2017, Love left the court during an NBA game. A panic attack had come without warning. He had been seeing a therapist for several months before that game but had not told teammates or the public. In March 2018, Toronto Raptors guard DeMar DeRozan spoke publicly about his own struggles with depression. Love chose to respond.

  His response was a first-person essay published in The Players' Tribune, titled "Everyone Is Going Through Something." He wrote: "Mental health is an invisible thing, but it touches all of us at some point or another." He also wrote: "I want to remind you that you're not weird or different for sharing what you're going through." For a player of Love's profile and prominence, publishing this under his own name was a notable act.

  By August 2018, Love was speaking openly about his family's history of depression. He described his own struggles with anxiety, rage, and "dark times" where he would hide in his room. He said he would not talk to anyone during those periods. He also said he believed he had "found his life's work" in mental health advocacy, particularly for young boys.

  The Kevin Love Fund, established in 2018, set a goal of helping more than 1 billion people over five years. Its focus was on improving physical and emotional well-being. Early beneficiaries included two programs designed to support high school students in making healthy choices. On the 12th of March 2020, the fund gave $100,000 to support staff at Rocket Mortgage FieldHouse, who had lost income during the COVID-19 pandemic. Cavaliers center Andre Drummond contributed an additional $60,000.

  On the 22nd of June 2020, the Kevin Love Fund pledged $500,000 toward a named chair in UCLA's psychology department. The UCLA Centennial Term Chair Match doubled the total to $1 million. That investment will support a researcher focused on diagnosing, preventing, treating, and reducing the stigma around anxiety and depression. Love received the Arthur Ashe Courage Award at the 2020 ESPY Awards. In 2023, he said he remains "definitely open to coming back and retiring" with the Cleveland Cavaliers.