The Blazers hosted their third round of six-deep workout participants, including an interesting mix of athletes, most of whom haven’t worked out anywhere else. Among them is Caleb Love of the University of Arizona.
The Blazers working him out tells us three things: One is that there’s enough potential to snag Love as a late-round sleeper. This is tied to the second thing: the Blazers are looking to be active late in the second round, where they currently have no picks, or after the final pick is made. Thirdly, the Blazers are incentivized to move on from Anfernee Simons, as Love’s role would more closely mirror Simons’ ideal role, that of a plug-and-play bench scorer.
The Blazers could use Caleb Love's shotmaking, but can they rein him in?
Generally speaking, when a player is seen as “polarizing,” the word falls at the feet of a prospect expected to be drafted somewhat early and denoting positional uncertainty or intangibles, much like Derik Queen in this class. Love is not highly ranked within this year’s class, instead dropping out of some mock drafts entirely.
The polarizing label, in this case, is attributed to a handful of factors—one such being his off-court antics. While most of that is irrelevant to an evaluation rooted solely within skill, it’s important to note that Love was ranked as a five-star prospect coming out of high school, and the criticism about his performance both on- and off-court is inexorably tied to five-star expectations.
A quote widely attributed to Santana Moss says, “Big-time players make big-time plays,” and despite swaths of fans ascribing the denigrating “Caleb Love experience” to his brand of basketball, Love showed up when it mattered in the NCAA tournament, canning four three-pointers per contest with 52/55/93 shooting splits.
In those games, his full repertoire was on display, with lightning-quick reflexes and undeniable athleticism coupled with some truly difficult shotmaking. This combination of physical tools and a questionable shot diet has come to be Love’s calling card—the aforementioned “experience.” While Love’s iso heroics will get him to an NBA court, a prospective coaching staff will have to rein him in if he hopes to stay on it, and Love needs the fortitude and maturity to embrace that.
Also buried in this round of workouts is a player from the University of Montana, Money Williams. Williams was not heavily recruited out of high school, wears the number zero, and was born in Oakland, attending the same high school as a former Blazers star and profiling as a high-volume three-point shooter. Hmm.