In his first season with the Cleveland Cavaliers, Kevin Love has not lived up to expectations. To this point, Love's scoring average is the lowest since his sophomore season, a year in which he started just 22 games for the Minnesota Timberwolves.

After starting the season 5-7, the revamped Cavaliers won eight straight games and seemed to have righted the ship. But that winning streak fooled even yours truly as the team has since lost five of their last ten games, some of which have been blowouts. One such game came against the red-hot Atlanta Hawks who were able to come into Cleveland and not only win, but make a statement. The 29-point loss was the largest of the season for the Cavaliers. The "Big Three" failed miserably and Kevin Love, LeBron James, and Dion Waiters were the only Cavaliers to reach double figures. Kyrie Irving was held to 9 points and Love only had 13.

Love has not been the center (pun intended) of the problem for the Cavaliers, but he has certainly not been much of an aid. A thin-lined supporting cast has left the big three with a large load to carry and has made it that much easier to criticize Love as a scapegoat. Anderson Varejao is out for the season, making Love the most experienced and talented tall boy on the Cavaliers. Without Varejao-one of the team's two true centers-Love will be tasked with stepping up his defensive play, which has already been criticized through much of the first portion of the season. A tall task for the 6'10", 243lb veteran, Love will need to be one of the best two-way big men in the league for the Cavaliers to reach their ultimate goal of appearing in the NBA Finals. Love has always been an exceptional three-point shooter (career 36%) and can create a tough matchup for opposing forwards. Rebounding is another strength of his game, but the seventh-year power forward has never been a dominant post presence. One-on-one, Love's defense is solid but, with little experience as an NBA center, help defense not a strong point. Without Varejao for support, Love will need to assume a larger role in the paint to not only limit opposing big men, but also contest guards penetrating the lane.

But don't be so quick to let him off the hook offensively. Averaging 17.1 points per game, Love's scoring assault has been less than deadly. In his first game this season at center, he was held to just 14 points and secured only 5 rebounds against the Miami Heat on Christmas Day. LeBron James was, of course, able to do his thing in his return to Miami, scoring 30 points. But the difficulty for first-year head coach David Blatt has been finding cohesiveness between his three stars. Getting them going simultaneously has been a struggle and Love seems to enjoy taking a back seat to James at times. For example, in consecutive games earlier this season against the Boston Celtics and Atlanta Hawks, Love scored 12 and 13 points, respectively, while James put up 41 and 32 on back-to-back nights. Kyrie Irving has been equally guilty at times, but Love's scoring is deserving of a "Needs Improvement" on his report card. He cannot allow the Cavaliers to become the "LeBron James Show" and must help his new teammates when they are in need.

A chemistry between the three All-Stars in Cleveland has yet to be fully developed and other Cavaliers have certainly been a part of the struggle. With Irving the most recent recipient of the injury plague, Love needs to be the dominant scorer he was last season on top of locking down the paint defensively-both areas which he has failed in thus far. Karma is a you-know-what and isn't it ironic that Varejao was lost for the season when Love's former team, the Minnesota Timberwolves, came to town.