JULY 6: The Heat have made it official, issuing a press release to announce their new deal with Love.
JUNE 30: Veteran power forward Kevin Love is returning to the Heat on a two-year contract, according to Tim Reynolds of The Associated Press. The second year will include a player option (Twitter links).
The Heat are using their Non-Bird rights to re-sign Love, which will result in a $3.7MM cap hit for next season, the Miami Herald’s Anthony Chiang tweets. Miami could have gone as high as $3.84MM to retain Love, so they’ll get a little cap relief if the $3.7MM figure is correct.
In either case, it’ll be a bargain for a five-time All-Star and 34-year-old rotation player. After reaching a buyout with the Cavaliers, Love appeared in 21 regular-season games with the Heat, including 17 starts. He averaged 7.7 points, 5.7 rebounds and 1.9 assists, though the 37% career 3-point shooter struggled from long range (29.7%).
Love played 20 postseason games with Miami, including 18 starts, and produced an average of 6.9 points, 5.6 rebounds and 1.2 assists in 17 minutes. His 3-point shooting perked up to his usual level (37.5%).
While it remains to be seen how the rest of the Heat’s roster moves shake out, Love will likely be a starter or key second-unit player once again for the defending Eastern Conference champions.
Kevin Love resigning with the Miami Heat is a great signing for them to get both him and Josh Richardson for small money is just amazing.
Let’s gooo! Honestly didnt think they’d be able to keep him. Significantly important for the spacing off the bench, and hopefully will be used more as a smallball 5 in the appropriate matchups
I was hoping for a Cavs reunion but I guess JB so don’t value his skill set.
Compared to what you could get Love is not bad at all
Kevin Love will return as the starting Power Forward and be able to groom Jaime Jaquez Jr and Nikola Jovic up behind him. The bigger move is Josh Richardson. I see him in the starting lineup at Point Guard replacing Gabe Vincent. Tyler Herro be back healthy with Jimmy Butler and Bam Adebayo. With the bench intact they look just as good as last season.
Josh Richardson going to turn out to one of the best signings this offseason. He can play three positions and guard three positions. So that will allow Erik Spoelstra to put him on every team top perimeter player every night and then Caleb Martin will be able to come off the bench and do the same. It allows Jimmy Butler to not have to wear himself down during the season and keep him fresh for the playoffs. Playoff Jimmy will be in full affect.
All you need is Love!