Why Cavaliers must re-sign Kevin Love

— -- After watching the Cleveland Cavaliers get to the NBA Finals without injured forward Kevin Love, it's understandable that some observers might wonder whether Cleveland really needs to re-sign Love as an unrestricted free agent.

Love will hit the market on Wednesday after informing the Cavaliers last week that he will not exercise his 2015-16 player option, according to ESPN's Marc Stein. And while Cleveland found a way to win without him after he suffered a playoff-ending shoulder injury, a look at the Cavaliers' performance over the course of the year suggests they need Love back next season.

The starting lineup with Love was good -- really good

After acquiring J.R. Smith from the New York Knicks and Timofey Mozgov from the Denver Nuggets in January, Cleveland settled on a starting lineup with Mozgov and Smith alongside All-Stars Love, Kyrie Irving and LeBron James. And that lineup proceeded to blow opponents away.

The Cavaliers' starting five (481 minutes) was one of 33 lineups in the NBA that saw at least 250 minutes of action during the 2014-15 regular season, per NBA.com/Stats. (Cleveland's lineup from early in the season, with Shawn Marion and Anderson Varejao in place of Smith and Mozgov, also qualified.) Of those 33, the Cavaliers' fivesome ranked fourth in offensive rating (116.1 points per 100 possessions) and sixth in defensive rating (96.8 points allowed per 100 possessions).

Thanks to that balance, Cleveland's starting lineup had the third-best net rating (plus-19.3 points per 100 possessions) of lineups with at least 250 minutes. San Antonio's healthy starting five outscored opponents by 23.6 points per 100 possessions in just 265 minutes of action. The only fivesome in the NBA that was both better than the Cavaliers' unit and used more frequently was the Golden State Warriors' starting five, which was plus-19.6 in 813 minutes.

The Cavs were actually at their best defensively during the regular season with Love

When Cleveland survived -- thrived, even, through the first three games of the NBA Finals -- as a defensive-minded unit without both Love and Irving in the playoffs, it reinforced the widespread view of Love as one of the league's worst defensive big men. The Cavaliers got better on D with Tristan Thompson joining Mozgov in the frontcourt, the theory went. Alas, that doesn't square with lineup data from the regular season. Of the three combinations of big men David Blatt used after Varejao's injury and Mozgov's addition, Love and Mozgov was Cleveland's best defensive pairing.

With Love and Mozgov on the court, opponents attempted just .177 free throws for every field goal attempt, which would have been the league's lowest mark by a mile (as it was, the Cavaliers were No. 1 in this category in the regular season at .238 free throw attempts per field goal attempt). That's consistent with Love's track record of foul-free play (he averaged just 2.0 fouls per 36 minutes), which worked much better when paired with a rim protector, the likes of which he never had as a teammate with the Minnesota Timberwolves.

So even when the comparison is limited to lineups that also included Cleveland's three perimeter starters, Love and Mozgov comes out as the best defensive pairing during the regular season -- with Mozgov and Thompson the worst defensively.

James was at his best with Love on the court

As impressive as James' postseason was, he was unable to play the kind of efficient basketball he prefers and has historically been best for his team's offense. Injuries to Love and Irving were a primary factor in James' reverting to a volume scorer, an outcome that shouldn't have been surprising when looking at his regular-season statistics with various combinations of those two stars on the floor.

While James is better equipped than mere mortals to ramp up his usage rate without losing efficiency -- enabling him to post an above-average true shooting percentage while being responsible for finishing more than half of the Cavs' plays with a shot, free throw or turnover as the lone All-Star on the court during the regular season -- he was predictably most efficient in a smaller role when playing with both Love and Irving.

Cleveland's cap situation makes replacing Love difficult

Maybe these numbers aren't enough to convince everyone that Love is a better fit in Cleveland than a more defensive-minded power forward such as free agent LaMarcus Aldridge. The fact is the Cavaliers have few realistic routes to acquiring such a player if Love walks because of their likely payroll commitments.

Teams that receive a free agent via a sign-and-trade are hard-capped at the luxury-tax apron ($4 million above the tax line). If Cleveland paid Aldridge or another free agent such as  Paul Millsap the maximum salary in a sign-and-trade after re-signing James at the max, the team would be limited to spending about $7.6 million on its other free agents -- enough to sign one of Smith or Iman Shumpert but surely not both and not likely sufficient for Thompson alone. While the Cavaliers might gain a little added flexibility by dumping Varejao's contract using draft picks, adding a maximum-salary free agent would gut the rest of their rotation -- assuming those free agents and their former teams are interested in the first place.

Cleveland could sign and trade Love for players under contract, but such an arrangement is unlikely to return full value, since Love would control his desired destination. And the non-guaranteed contract of center Brendan Haywood, while a useful trade chip, won't yield a star. A player such as  Ersan Ilyasova, acquired by the Detroit Pistons earlier this month for similar non-guaranteed contracts, is probably a best-case scenario.

So the smartest move for the Cavaliers is to re-sign Love, providing he's amenable, and find out whether their performance with him in the lineup during the regular season can translate into the postseason. If it holds up, Cleveland might be even better in the playoffs next time around.