The relationship between Kevin Love and LeBron James has become the topic de jure even as the Cavs have come back —winning 12 in a row and nine of their last 10 — from their horrendus play when LeBron took a couple weeks off. After James sent out a cryptic tweet implicitly aimed at Love, he’s since castigated the media for jumping on the story while backtracking from his original explanation. Through it all, Love has maintained his distance and said all the right things. Love tells the Akron Beacon Journal “there’s no problem with us,” even though the tweet caught him “off-guard.”
“I was caught off-guard when I heard about it,” Love said. ”We’re teammates, we see each other, there’s no problem with us.”
Here’s the tweet in question, which hasn’t been taken down.
Stop trying to find a way to FIT-OUT and just FIT-IN. Be apart of something special! Just my thoughts
— LeBron James (@KingJames) February 8, 2015
LeBron backtracked when he saw ESPN lead with a story about a possible feud between the two stars:
“I’m not sugarcoating or hiding behind it,” James said. “I gotta seem him every day, so if I have something to say to him, I’ll say it to his face. The rest of the guys, too. … I would hope they would come to me as well.”
When asked if he thought LeBron’s tweet was originally aimed at something Love said earlier in the preseason, Love couldn’t say:
“I don’t know. I truly feel if LeBron had a problem with me or had to talk to me for good or worse, he would’ve come up and talked to me,” Love said. “I truly believe that.”
This whole thing is a game of telephone with the media as a conduit. It was peculiar James sent the tweet out, and the diction does point towards what Love said in the preseason. All this came about when Love and LeBron were doing a pirouette in the media about the cause of Love’s shooting ills, which ironically coincided with Cleveland’s surge in the Eastern Conference standings.
Just another day in the life of a Cavs team who continues to adjust to the media glare that comes with a star-studded squad.
What do you think?
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