Cavs: How much of a difference would Kevin Love be making right now?

Currently, the Cleveland Cavaliers are on an eight-game losing streak which includes getting swept in a five-game road trip (at the Phoenix Suns, Denver Nuggets, Portland Trail Blazers, LA Clippers and at the Golden State Warriors). In fact, Cleveland hasn’t won since Feb. 1 against the Minnesota Timberwolves 100-98 in Cleveland.

However, for nearly the whole season, Kevin Love has been out of the lineup due to a high-grade right calf strain. He initially sustained that injury in preseason and reaggravated it on Dec. 27 versus the Philadelphia 76ers.

On the plus side, according to a report last weekend from Cleveland.com’s Chris Fedor, it seems that Love could potentially be set to return on Sunday versus the Oklahoma City Thunder.

In any case, it leads one to wonder about whether or not if Love weren’t injured, could things be different.

If Love had been in the lineup would the Cavs still be in a slump?

This is a bit of a difficult question to answer because ever since Kyrie Irving and LeBron James have departed, Kevin Love hasn’t really proven to be that go-to guy that the Cavaliers originally thought they were getting.

But this is not a knock on Love in any way, because he was a critical piece of the 2016 championship team which came back from a 3-1 deficit to defeat the Golden State Warriors. In Game 7, Love made a key defensive stop on Stephen Curry late down the stretch and has been an elite rebounder in his time with the Cleveland Cavaliers.

Albeit Love hasn’t played since again, that Philly game, which was the third outing of the season. And he only played nine minutes in that game, in which he scored four points. But in the game at the Detroit Pistons the night before, Love had 15 points and nine rebounds, and was a plus-14. So what exactly are the Cavaliers losing by not having K-Love out on the floor?

Well, first of all, they’re missing a guy who has the ability to get a double-double almost every game. As stated earlier, he was one rebound away from getting a double-double in Detroit.

Second of all, Love can stretch the floor because teams know that he has the ability to shoot three-point looks; Love hit 37.4 percent of a career-high 7.0 triple attempts per game last season. Similar to how Love’s presence helped open up the lane for Kyrie Irving and LeBron James, it would help create a similar situation with some of the young guys now such as Collin Sexton, Darius Garland and Isaac Okoro.

Now some of the recent matchups wouldn’t have favored the Cavaliers even with Kevin Love in the lineup, such as seemingly at the Clippers and the Warriors.

Those two teams don’t quite have your prototypical big man, and Golden State has no natural 5’s even available right now, but they like to get up and down the court at a quicker pace. Stephen Curry obliterated Cleveland, in that realm, too, and had 36 points in 30 minutes on 13-of-19 shooting, even, with plenty of damage done easily from deep.

Overall, though, Kevin Love would be making a difference out on the court for the Cavaliers not just because of what he brings to the court offensively, but also just because of his veteran leadership. And he’s seemingly shown more so this season on the sidelines that he’s fully bought-in, even.

The Cleveland Cavaliers are a very young team and they have a lot of potential in the future. Perhaps we misjudged them for this season, albeit the Eastern Conference is very top-heavy and weak at the bottom.

So who knows, maybe Kevin Love comes back from his injury and the Cavaliers can maybe take off and get back in the thick of things, in theory. You never know what can happen.