"Happy Birthday To Me, Donovan Mitchell, & No One Else!" - Kevin Love Celebrates Birthday With New Teammate
The celebrations keep coming in Cleveland, as it turns out Kevin Love shares the same birthday as three-time All-Star Donovan Mitchell.
After Mitchell was recently traded, NBA reporter Brian Windhorst said that the dominant guard "went screaming around the golf course" in celebration. That joy continued for the Cleveland Cavaliers this week as Mitchell and Love celebrated their birthdays on Wednesday.
Love took tweeted about the occasion, doing some team bonding and giving "Spida" a birthday shoutout.
Happy birthday to ME, @spidadmitchell and no one else!!! 😂😂😂
Hahaha happy birthday my brotha 😂😂😂 twitter.com/kevinlove/stat…
With the NBA season rapidly approaching, the Cavaliers and their young core look to make a statement thanks to a great string of moves in recent years.
The Cavaliers have impressed in recent seasons by picking stellar youngsters in Collin Sexton, Darius Garland and then Evan Mobley in the 2021 draft.
Despite Sexton being shipped to Utah via a sign-and-trade for Mitchell, Cavaliers fans have the reassurance of witnessing a breakout season last year. The Cavs snapped a string of three consecutive losing seasons and made the play-in tournament despite Sexton's season-ending meniscus tear in November.
A new team for Donovan Mitchell, a new beginning for Kevin Love
Despite finding success with the Utah Jazz, questions arose regarding whether Mitchell and Rudy Gobert could lead a team to an NBA championship together.
Concerns about their relationship and their playoff struggles led Mitchell to say that everyone seemed to be rooting for a bitter feud between the two. Although the pair said time and time again that they wanted to win together in Utah, the Jazz front office traded both this offseason. Gobert went to the Minnesota Timberwolves in July, and Mitchell got shipped to the Cleveland Cavaliers.
The years following the Cavaliers’ 2016 championship have been rough for five-time All-Star Kevin Love.
The team was not going to be a title contender any time soon following LeBron James' 2018 departure. So, it looked like Love would eventually have his contract bought out so he could pursue a role on a playoff team.
Even so, he remained on the Cavaliers' roster, suffering a series of injuries that saw the once-dominant forward play just 103 games over three seasons. Fortunately for Love, things began to click last season as he and a young core made the play-in tournament. Meanwhile, Love came up just shy of winning the Sixth Man of the Year Award.
With the addition of Donovan Mitchell and Love poised for another impressive season, Cleveland should be a true threat in the Eastern Conference this season.