Today's Athletic has an EXTENSIVE mea culpa from Love, here's the bulk of it... dude sounds like he's in a bad place.
I know that I fucked up,” Love said. “I apologize for that. I don’t go out there meaning to upset anybody, to embarrass myself, to embarrass the organization because I feel like I’m a part of something of bigger than myself here.My intent wasn’t to disrespect the game. My intent wasn’t even for the damn ball to go inbounds. It was a moment that I got caught up in. I didn’t even really understand what happened as the possession played out. I think I was a little dumbfounded. I even heard a couple of coaches saying the ball wasn’t in. My idea was that I was going to go grab the ball and pass it right back into DG. But that obviously wasn’t the case. I kept playing hard, didn’t play the fourth quarter. Other guys got to see minutes, but I didn’t realize how bad it looked really until after the game, I truly didn’t.
I just completely shut down because I never want that to be who I am. I don’t want to be here and defend my character whether it being Chris Fedor saying I blatantly lost the game or whatever he said in the media, which was brought to my attention by different players and the coaching staff, who knows I would ride or die with them. Everything I do comes from a good place. Whatever was said outside of it was a way bigger deal than … I know that I fucked up. This isn’t, ‘Woe is me.’ These guys ride with me. I apologized. We’ve moved on. We even talked about it today, but I mean I know the perception and the way people want to make this. Me being a leader for the team and I know I’m going to take that on the chin. I’m going to be a man and take it on the chin.
I apologize for that lack of judgment because that wasn’t me. Truly wasn’t me. I truly believe that all the good that I do should outweigh the bad.
I’m slightly broken-hearted because I have had the game taken away from me. I have missed games and I feel a lot of guilt. That’s another thing on top of imposter syndrome and I mentioned feeling that guilt in missing games and letting my teammates down, letting the fans down and then having a setback and returning to play and not being able to be my old self. I’m so frustrated that I can’t be my full self right now for my teammates and that … you know I can’t be better for them and that was part of the moment of frustration that I had, that was a big part of it. And for that, I apologize too.
This isn’t something that happened last year, where, yes, that was something that was not coming from a good place. But this wasn’t that. DG even made light of it after the game, and I had to kind of say, ‘Hey, listen, guys. No, that was a really bad situation.’ I know, of course, they come down and hit a 3 out of it. But it was nothing about them. It was nothing about the coaching staff. Part of it was the officiating, part of it was how I’ve been playing, the back-to-back, us having four or five games out, but those just sound like excuses. I take this one on the chin, naturally, I’ll do that as a man, I’ll do that as a teammate. And just, again, like I said, continue to get better. That’s really all I can do. And like I said, this one hurt me because it wasn’t coming from a bad place.
I’ll say it again and again, I fucked up. But at the same time, my relationship with the coaches, my teammates, front office, people want to make something about Koby (Altman) or Andrae Patterson or Jason Hillman, we’ve never had a better relationship than we’ve had now. I’ll ride or die for J.B. and our coaching staff, and I’ll ride or die for our young guys, even when I’m given 60 percent, 70 percent of myself up right now because I’m still getting over the hump with my injury.
I’m not saying that what was said about me or any of our team or anything is unjust. I believe that we have to be better and especially me being a leader, I have to be better. But I know that I’m a good human being. I know in some cases that I’m misunderstood. And that’s fine. And that’s fine.
I love Cleveland, I’ll fucking rock with Cleveland ’til the day I die. I believe that I’ll come back here, whether anybody’s opinion of me has soured because I haven’t been available or my play this year hasn’t quite been there because I’m off balance, and I’m not able to get in the shape I want to be in because I’m held back, fine. Those can all sound like excuses. But this is just me leaving it all out there. being truthful and just being Kevin. I mean, at the end of the day, that’s all I can be.
― Draymond is "Mr Dumpy" (forksclovetofu), Thursday, 29 April 2021 15:01 (three years ago) link