All indications are that Kevin Love won't be back with the Utah Jazz this season. There haven't been any rumors tying him to them lately, but rather to his previous teams, like the Cleveland Cavaliers and Minnesota Timberwolves. Maybe the Jazz didn't want him back, but they will likely miss his unique personality.
That was on display when the Toronto Raptors held a retirement ceremony for Kyle Lowry, where they showed a statue of him. Love attended the ceremony (even though he and Lowry were never teammates in the NBA, nor did Love ever play for Toronto), where he quipped, "I know this is Kyle’s day, but isn’t this LeBronto?" drawing plenty of boos, and then clarified that he was just kidding.
This is in reference to the fact that back when Love and LeBron James were teammates in Cleveland, James utterly dominated the Raptors in the playoffs back when Lowry was there from 2016 to 2018, even as the Raptors supposedly got stronger every passing year.
Yeah, Love definitely did not make any friends with our friends up north with that comment, but it's another reminder of his charming personality. Maybe it was a tad inappropriate, but that's what Utah will be missing with Love no longer on the team.
Love tells it like it is
Even though Love was originally a throw-in from the John Collins who many thought was going to be waived immediately, he actually made an impression with the Jazz in his lone year with the team. His All-Star days were very much in the past, but Love was respected in the locker room because of his previous experience as a former All-Star and NBA Champion.
That's the kind of presence a team with no expectations like the Jazz could have used last year. By extension, it is a little surprising that they opted not to bring him back after the impression he left. Perhaps Utah believed it was better to use their roster spots on players who could play, which Love wasn't anymore.
In their defense, no one has signed Love this offseason, even after he transitioned smoothly into more of a Taj Gibson-like presence in the twilight of his career. Players like that can be useful when the stakes are high. For that reason, it might not be over for him, period. However, sentimentally, it would have been nice to see his union with the Jazz continue.
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