LeBron, not Lue, informed Love of position change to center

This won't do much to dispel the perception that LeBron James controls everything when it comes to the Cleveland Cavaliers.

It was announced to begin preseason that Kevin Love would shift over from power forward to center, while Tristan Thompson and J.R. Smith moved to the bench in order to accommodate new additions Dwyane Wade and Jae Crowder.

According to Love, the person who delivered his new instructions was not head coach Tyronn Lue, but rather it was James.

"I guess it wasn't really presented in the first place," Lue told ESPN's Dave McMenamin. "I knew there was a possibility that I may or may not be playing more of the 5.

"But a funny thing happened the third day of practice. I had asked about a certain play on the defensive end and whether it was the different coverages on the 4 or 5 man, and 'Bron kind of stopped me and goes, 'You know you're gonna be starting at the 5, right?'

"So I kind of looked at him and didn't really fully understand that was going to be the case. Not that I would have trained or done anything different. I just would have started wrapping my head around it more. So that's when I kind of knew that was coming into play, and I slowly and surely started to pick it up."

Love playing center brings both positives and negatives. His elite 3-point shooting ability will drag opposing centers out of the paint, and as the lone big on the floor for Cleveland, Love should see more opportunities to be involved in the offense.

But on the flip side, Cleveland's defense was already substandard when a premium defender in Thompson was there to erase some of Love's deficiencies. With no shot blockers on the floor, and no other big to take the tougher defensive assignments, it will be up to Love to serve as the last line of defense while also staying out of foul trouble.