Kevin Love on early struggles with Cavaliers: 'I got too skinny'

Kevin Love believes he was “too skinny” when he first joined the Cavaliers.

Kevin Love credits his early struggles with the Cleveland Cavaliers due to being "too skinny," he tells Lee Jenkins in a new profile for SI's The Crossover.

Love dropped to 240 pounds when the Cavaliers traded No. 1 draft pick Andrew Wiggins to Minnesota for him. 

“I thought we’d run, run, run, and I’d need to be really slender,” Love said. “I got too skinny.”

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The Cavaliers did not run as much as he expected and he thought about adding weight in the off-season. He dislocated his shoulder in the NBA Eastern Conference Finals against the Boston Celtics and was unable to lift as much as he hoped.

"Cavs performance director Alex Moore, the former strength and conditioning coordinator for the U.S. ski team, took Love to the squad’s headquarters in Park City, Utah, for six weeks that off-season. Love trained 7,000 feet above sea level but was not allowed to lift anything heavier than 30 pounds."

Love now weights about 251 pounds and is coming off a season in which he averaged 16.0 points, 9.9 rebounds and 0.5 blocks per game. He averaged 14.7 points, 2.1 assists and 0.4 rebounds per game in the postseason.

Read Jenkins's story in its entirety here.