As the old saying goes, “necessity is the mother of invention”, and perhaps no Portland Trail Blazers season has personified this phrase more than this one.
After a near-comical series of mishaps, the Blazers have found themselves without a point guard for nearly all of this season. Neither Damian Lillard nor Scoot Henderson has played at all. Jrue Holiday has played 15 of 41 games, and the recently acquired Blake Wesley played just nine games before fracturing a foot.
Enter: Caleb Love, an undrafted rookie out of Arizona, signed to one of Portland’s three two-way roster spots.
Caleb Love has stepped up when Portland needed him the most
In light of Holiday’s absence, Love’s game has exponentially grown; after a minutes bump on December 23, Love has averaged 16.4 points in 29.2 minutes per game. Most importantly, he’s shot 40% from three on nearly nine attempts per game in that period.
On a team starved for a reliable three-point stroke, Love earned minutes even as Holiday returned to the lineup, scoring nearly 17 points with three triples in 29.6 minutes per contest. One such game saw Love hitting five threes and scoring 21 points, becoming the first Blazers rookie since the Letter O.
A whopping 94% of Love’s minutes have been played at the point guard position, and as a testament to his progress, Love dished out seven assists in Holiday’s second game back, two better than his previous high of five that he achieved just once.
Love’s ascendancy has slowly breached Blazer containment; only three undrafted players in the last ten years received at least one Rookie of the Year vote—Yogi Ferrell and Rodney McGruder, both with one third-place vote, and Terence Davis with two. Caleb Love currently finds himself at number nine on this year’s most recent ROTY ladder, the only undrafted two-way player since two-way deals began in 2017.
In a curious twist of fate, Caleb Love was named MVP of Damian Lillard’s 2022 Formula Zero camp, an invitation-only event composed of 40 of the top college and high school players. Also at that camp were NBA players Marcus Sasser, Will Richard, Ja’Kobe Walter, and Keyonte George, with the latter enjoying a breakout campaign this season.
In a post-camp interview with The Athletic, Love stated that Damian Lillard is his favorite player, so it should come as no surprise that Love has excelled in Portland. Love and Lillard share a similar collegiate statistical profile in all categories except points and shooting percentages, with the caveat of Love facing much stiffer college competition at UNC and Arizona compared to Lillard at Weber State.
Love’s expanded workload and subsequent performance come at an inflection point for the Blazers, as a favorable schedule strength begins to harmonize with an increasingly healthy roster. January is the time of year when front offices begin to lay their cards on the table and make decisions about the playoffs, and Love’s development appears to have lifted Joe Cronin’s foot off the tank’s gas pedal.