University of California, Los Angeles, Athletics
With Love, Cavs are Back in NBA Finals
June 01, 2016 | Men's Basketball
Former UCLA center Kevin Love has helped lead the Cleveland Cavaliers to the NBA Finals for the second consecutive season. The Cavaliers will take on the Golden State Warriors in a best-of-seven game series beginning Thursday, June 2.
Representing the Warriors from UCLA are rookie forward Kevon Looney and the organization's general manager, Bob Myers. Looney excelled as a forward for the Bruins in 2014-15, while Myers was a four-year letterwinner at UCLA from 1995-98. Myers helped assemble the Warriors' squad that captured the 2015 NBA Championship.
Love finished the 2015-16 regular season having averaged 16.0 points and 9.9 rebounds per game, shooting 41.9 percent from the field and 36.0 percent from three-point range. He has registered 17.3 points and 9.6 rebounds per game in the 2016 postseason (14 games), helping Cleveland post a 12-2 mark entering the NBA Finals.
Looney's rookie season in the NBA has been slowed due to hip surgery, but the former UCLA standout played in five games with Golden State during the regular season.
With these two former UCLA players on the Cavaliers and Warriors, that marks the 58th time in which a former UCLA basketball player has competed on a team that has advanced to the NBA Finals. Love helped Cleveland advance to the NBA Finals last season but didn't play in the championship series due to an injury he sustained earlier in the playoffs. In all, 25 former UCLA players have competed on NBA teams that have advanced to the NBA Finals.
The upcoming series will mark the first NBA Finals since 1987 in which both competing teams will have at least one former UCLA player on its roster. In 1987, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar led the Los Angeles Lakers past the Boston Celtics, who had both Bill Walton and Darren Daye in the team's rotation.
Other former UCLA players, aside from Love, who have represented the university in the NBA Finals within the last 10 seasons include Russell Westbrook (Oklahoma City in 2012), Jordan Farmar (Los Angeles Lakers in 2008, 2009 and 2010) and Trevor Ariza (Los Angeles Lakers in 2008 and 2009). Farmar is the most recent former UCLA player to have helped his NBA team win the title (2010).
Cleveland opens the series at Golden State on Thursday. Game time at Oakland's Oracle Arena is 6 p.m. PT (9 p.m. ET). The series will be nationally televised by ABC.
