Caleb Love’s Recent Play Helping Spark the Trailblazers

Portland Trail Blazers have won 5 of their last 6 games while Jerami Grant, Jrue Holiday, Scoot Henderson, and Damion Lillard, and Blake Wesley all watch from the sidelines. If the snazzy street clothes don’t give it away, that's over $100,000,000 in salary enjoying popcorn from the front row.

The recent injuries don’t seem to be affecting the team, as Tiago Splitter has his guys buying into the system.  Deni Avidija is carrying much of the offensive load and has NBA legends Steve Nash and Lebron praising his play. Clingan is holding the defense down as Sharp continues to develop into a Superstar.   

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What’s most impressive has been the play of guys whose salaries aren’t listed on ESPN.  Sidy Cissoko and Caleb Love are two unsung heroes of this hot streak.

Caleb Love is an interesting case.  He was a 5 star recruit out of high school after being coached by Jayson Tatum’s father.  He spent 3 years at UNC and 2 in Arizona. His play and demeanor drew the attention of NBA scouts, opposing coaches and fans.  This culminated in his ejection from the ASU game after he apparently instigated a head butt from ASU’s BJ Freeman.  Following the game Coach Bobby Hurley waved off the handshake line and stated that he would not be voting for Caleb Love for  All-Conference.

Caleb was not invited to the 2025 NBA combine. This left many scouts puzzled as to why he was excluded after a successful collegiate career.  My searches didn’t bring up any crazy off the court legal issues that might warrant teams to stay away. Caleb seems to just be disliked? He went undrafted, but eventually signed a two-way deal with the Blazers.

As of late it seems as Caleb is using this oversight to fuel his recent play. In the last six games he’s scoring 17.3 ppg while shooting 41% from 3pt range. His stats aren’t amongst top rookies, but his recent play is cementing him as the best undrafted performer this season.  He seems to have done enough to earn a spot on the bench when the Trailblazers big guns get healthy.   I’ll be keeping an eye on Caleb the rest of this season as he could become one of the best stories this NBA season.