Dywane Wade looks to patch things up with Kevin Love after unknowingly insulting Love’s struggles with mental health when with the Cavaliers.
The 2017-18 Cleveland Cavaliers featured a strange amalgamation of players who, under normal circumstances, probably would not have been on the team. However, with Kyrie Irving’s abrupt departure, LeBron James was surrounded by guys like Dwyane Wade, Jae Crowder, and Isiah Thomas.
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The first few months with this roster were quite rough as the championship core consisting of LeBron and Kevin Love at the helm, failed to mesh with the newer squad members. Things, infamously, came to a head when Dwyane Wade called out Love during a team flight following an embarrassing loss to the Oklahoma City Thunder.
Kevin Love had failed to show up to the game and his whereabouts weren’t revealed to his teammates either. This irked Wade and Thomas who demanded to know where Kevin was. other players on the roster bashed the 2016 champ as well for taking an unprecedented leave of absence.
Dwyane Wade admits he didn’t know of Kevin Love’s mental health struggles during the 2018 season.
“I had an incident in Cleveland with Kevin Love where I didn’t know that he suffered from any mental healt issues,” said Dwyane Wade. “I was on him because I’m an old dude trying to, this is my last ride to a championship, and I didn’t know what he was dealing with, mentally.”
Wade goes on to acknowledge the incident took place but later show his admiration for Love becoming outspoken about his mental health issues. He would go on to say that he would like to apologize to the former UCLA big man in person if he were ever given a chance.
An important mechanism of learning is to reflect on past experiences with new lenses. Perspective. Point of View. 2 people I have learned to respect more are Dwayne Wade and Kevin Love. Be generous with each other friends. https://t.co/BUX9Qcjlrc
— Ronald Schuck (@Schuckscience) August 7, 2021
“Kevin Love may not like me as a person because of that moment, but if I ever got the opportunity to see him again, I’d just want to apologize to him because I didn’t know what he was dealing with and I was just trying to say, ‘We need you, we need you,’. I didn’t know he was dealing with something that serious.”
The two haven’t had the chance to bury the hatchet as shortly after that game, the Cavaliers front office flipped quite nearly every single one of their newest acquisitions for younger talent at the trade deadline.
