Should the Cavaliers trade Kevin Love for Carmelo Anthony?

— -- At first glance, the idea of the Cleveland Cavaliers trading Kevin Love to the New York Knicks for Carmelo Anthony -- a swap the Cavaliers recently rebuffed, according to reporting by ESPN's Chris Haynes and Marc Stein -- seems like a nonstarter.

Love is enjoying the best of his three seasons in Cleveland after helping the Cavaliers win their first championship. He was an easy choice as an Eastern Conference All-Star reserve, while Anthony didn't make the All-Star roster for the first time in a decade and wasn't even one of the top omissions.

Nonetheless, considering how Anthony might be used in Cleveland -- particularly in a possible third consecutive meeting with the Golden State Warriors in the NBA Finals -- suggests Melo might make sense for the Cavaliers. So should they revisit the Love for Anthony deal?

Spot-up shooting

Let's take a look at how Anthony might fit into the role Love plays in Cleveland. His primary responsibility is spacing the floor. This figures to be an easy win for Love. He's a career 36.5 percent 3-point shooter who's making 37.9 percent from beyond the arc this season. Anthony has made 34.6 percent of his career 3-pointers, though he's at 36.6 percent so far this season.

Remember, however, that not all 3-pointers are created equal. Many of Anthony's have been difficult, off-the-dribble attempts with a defender nearby. Love gets the luxury of open catch-and-shoot 3s often created by LeBron James. ( Per SportVU tracking on NBA.com/Stats, 102 of his 277 3-point attempts have come after a pass from James.)

Again using SportVU data, let's compare the distribution of 3-point attempts for the two players this season by the location of the nearest defender.

The two players shoot what NBA.com defines as "open" 3-pointers at similar rates of frequency. But Love shoots "wide-open" 3s twice as often.

If defenses treated Anthony the same way they treat Love, that would essentially mean turning 55 "tightly guarded" attempts into "wide-open" 3s. And Anthony shoots far better on "wide-open" attempts (42.9 percent this season) than "tightly guarded" ones (33.7 percent).

So if Anthony kept making shots at the same rate based on the location of the nearest defender with Love's distribution of shots, we'd expect Anthony to shoot 38.7 percent from 3-point range -- better than Love.

Post-up play

Besides spotting up, post-ups are the other primary source of Love's shot attempts. According to Synergy Sports tracking, 156 of his 610 shots this season have come on spot-ups and another 125 on post-ups. No other Synergy play type accounts for more than 100 shots.

Yet Love hasn't been particularly effective as a post-up scorer this season. Of the 21 players Synergy has as attempting at least 100 shots out of post-ups, Love's 39.7 percent shooting ranks dead last. Anthony's 41.9 percent shooting has been slightly better -- he ranks 18th among this group.

This might not be a fair comparison because Anthony's post-ups come primarily against smaller wing defenders who have to check him on the perimeter. Still, it doesn't appear to be a part of Love's game the Cavaliers would particularly miss.

Running the offense without LeBron

Love's responsibilities change dramatically when James hits the bench to rest, as he goes back to the featured role in the offense he played with the Minnesota Timberwolves. According to NBA.com/Stats, Love has finished nearly 35 percent of the Cavaliers' plays with a shot, trip to the free throw line or turnover when James is out of the game.

In the context of that high usage rate -- which would rank fourth in the league this season behind Russell Westbrook, DeMarcus Cousins and Joel Embiid -- Love's .547 true shooting percentage without LeBron is solid. Anthony, who's using just 29.4 percent of the Knicks' plays, has a marginally worse .539 true shooting percentage. And Cleveland has outscored opponents by 7.3 points per 100 possessions when Love plays without James, so it's hard to argue Anthony would be an upgrade -- or even be able to match that success.

Given their success with Love on and James off, why have the Cavaliers had such a hard time winning when James sits out games? Well, according to NBAwowy.com, Cleveland has been outscored by 28.1 points per 100 possessions in the 98 minutes this season Kyrie Irving has been on the court but both James and Love have been on the bench.

'Playmaking'

James' recent public requests to add a "playmaker" could be seen as a justification for an Anthony trade. As Brian Windhorst noted last week, the Cavaliers have just two players averaging more than two assists per game, so Anthony's 3.0 average would rank third on the team behind James and Irving.

Still, as we note how Anthony might become more efficient in the role Love plays in Cleveland, we also must consider how that might limit his opportunities to make plays for teammates. Love averaged 4.4 assists per 36 minutes in his final season in Minnesota -- better than Anthony has ever averaged. His career high is 4.3 per 36 minutes. But since joining the Cavaliers, Love has never averaged more than 2.8 assists per 36 minutes.

Moreover, Anthony wouldn't fill Cleveland's specific need at backup point guard. So I don't think playmaking belongs in the list of reasons for the Cavaliers to consider trading for Anthony.

Defense

Defensive rebounding is a major advantage for Love. He's grabbing 28.5 percent of available defensive rebounds, while Anthony is at 17.3 percent -- excellent for a small forward but below average for a power forward (as a group, NBA power forwards average 18.3 percent of available defensive rebounds).

With Love on the court this season, Cleveland is pulling down 77.4 percent of opponents' misses as a team, according to NBA.com/Stats, which would rank eighth in the league. With Love on the bench, that drops to 73.5 percent, which would be the league's worst defensive rebound percentage.

Discussing defense brings up an important point: If Anthony and James were to start at forward together, one of them would have to defend power forwards, a role both have been reluctant to play because of wear and tear. On the plus side, however, Anthony's mobility would become a major strength defending 4s and would make it easier for the Cavaliers to switch pick-and-rolls involving the position -- something they often have to do against the Warriors.

Because of Anthony's defensive versatility, the Knicks have defended better with him at power forward at times over the past four seasons, which runs counter to the typical tradeoff when players slide down from small forward to power forward. This year, they have a 107.7 defensive rating in 460 minutes with Anthony at the 4, as compared to 111.1 with him at his typical 3 spot, according to NBA.com/Stats lineup data.

Anthony trade might make sense for this season, but not for the future

At this stage of his career, Anthony is better as a supporting player -- one reason the Knicks are on pace to win 36 games this season.

If he's willing to accept a smaller role on offense and defend bigger opponents, Anthony looks like he'd fit much better as a complementary piece in Cleveland than as a go-to guy in New York. As a result, despite Love's overall superiority this season, there's a case to be made that the Cavaliers might not experience much drop-off by swapping the two players and could even benefit from Anthony's superior mobility if the Cavs meet Golden State again in the NBA Finals.

However, there are two important factors we haven't discussed yet: age and contracts. Anthony will turn 33 in May and already has declined sharply since his peak. Love, at 28, is still in his prime. As time goes on, Love's advantage over Anthony should increase presuming the back issues he has dealt with at times don't become serious.

Meanwhile, Anthony's salary and trade bonus mean swapping him for Love would add substantially to Cleveland's luxury-tax bill, which is already sizable -- making adding more salary using the team's trade exceptions even more painful.

The financial implications could undermine the possibility of a larger Anthony deal, with the Knicks including additional role players to increase the Cavaliers' depth. Such a larger deal might clearly improve their chances of winning this year's championship, which is a necessary condition for trading the younger Love for the older Anthony.

But if it's a straight swap, I don't think the upside is clear enough for this season. As a result, the Cavaliers were wise to turn down New York's overtures. Trading Love for Anthony one-for-one would likely be a bad idea.