We swear we're not trying to pile on here. But goodness, the national stuff coming out on the Cavaliers and Kevin Love just keeps getting worse. The latest we've read comes from ESPN.com's Brian Windhorst, and the portion on Love — coming after Love was benched for the fourth quarter in a loss to Phoenix, the Cavs' 9th in their past 10 games — isn't pretty:

His defense has been predictably shoddy much of the time, but as a team, the Cavs' transition defense and overall communication are routinely abysmal. The Cavs got down by 19 against the Suns before making a comeback, mostly without Love, but James and Kyrie Irving's combined 13 turnovers were more of a culprit than Love's defensive issues.

On offense, where Love should be a monster, he hasn't been very often.

"I've seen Kevin fall down with the ball more times this season than the rest of his career combined because he's always in positions where he's uncomfortable and he's forced into trying to make some sort of move to get a shot, and that has never been his game," said one veteran NBA coach. "They almost never put him in position to get the ball that he did in his last few years in Minnesota and I can't figure out why."

So Love is the same guy on defense, but he's being used improperly on offense. A lot of that is on the Cavs, but Love is bearing much of the criticism. Windhorst concludes at the end of the piece:

They are still a long way from having a lost season. But, wow, are they a long way off course.

If it gets worse, we'll alert Stu that there's a new candidate for the Increasingly Lost Season feature.