Kevin Love wants his NBA brothers to step up and lead the community during the coronavirus suspension ... calling for everyone to be "more than athletes" and follow his lead.
As we previously reported ... the Cleveland Cavs champ was the first player to lead the charge and donate $100k to support Rocket Mortgage FieldHouse employees who are without work during the NBA suspension.
K. Love spoke about his generous donation on the "Today" show Wednesday morning ... and he wants more players to get involved.
"It's been an incredibly stressful time for number of people ... a lot of people living paycheck to paycheck," Love says. "So I felt this is a really good time, especially for NBA players, to walk-the-walk and be more than athletes."
Love continued ... "We see people in the community, we see people working in our arena work at least 41 nights out of the year, us playing home games, so it was way for me to try and help navigate this incredibly stressful and anxiety-ridden time to just pay it for and really help them."
The 5-time All-Star -- who is outspoken about mental health awareness -- emphasizes it's a time for his NBA family to help relieve the stress arena staffers may have when they don't know when the next paycheck will come through.
There are players already following Love's lead -- Zion Williamson and Giannis Antetokounmpo have shelled out massive donations to help arena employees ... and more are expected to follow.