Kevin Love waves off Lakers rumors

As his days in Minnesota wound down, it was an open secret that Kevin Love wanted out, to the point that he was openly flirting with the city of Boston.

He landed in Cleveland in what appears to have the makings of a great situation, but that doesn't mean his long-term status is in any way certain. Love can opt out of his contract this summer, and even if he wants to stay in Cleveland, it makes financial sense to opt out and sign a new deal. That means he'll play the season out with - essentially - an expiring deal, which means he'll face speculation about his future until pen is put to paper this summer.

Fair or otherwise, the unsubstantiated rumor mill is already churning. Long thought to be an option after his Timberwolves days were done, the Los Angeles Lakers were brought up as a team on Love's mind in a recent Bulls.com article (see the story below for more).

Asked on Friday about not just the rumors but the now-infamous mustache twirling hand gesture he performed with Kyrie Irving, Love tied both topics together as baseless:

Whatever (people assumed) we were doing with our hands was about as true as me going to the Lakers. I mean, I don't know why it was so hard for people to realize that we were actually curling our mustache. I guess because I had my fingers in the wrong place. Looking at the tape, film don't lie, it looks like we are doing something bad but that wasn't the case.
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Going to the Lakers, no, that's not (true). I don't know where somebody got that.

The Lakers make sense if all other things were equal, since Love is originally from the west coast and played his college ball at UCLA. But it doesn't make a great deal of basketball sense, at least not if the Lakers look like they do now and the Cavaliers come together as expected.

It's an unfortunate reality of free agency that Love and others in his position will be subject to these questions for most of the season, but that's life.