Portland Trail Blazers rookie Caleb Love has emerged as one of this season’s brightest, most unexpected developments. In his most recent feature for the Athletic (subscription required), Blazers reporter
Jason Quick examines Love’s journey to the NBA – from high school phenom to draft night vagabond – and how Damian Lillard has shaped that journey.
Before the 2025 NBA Draft, Love was confident that his senior-year campaign at Arizona would turn the heads of NBA executives. The reality was much harder to bear, Quick writes.
Love responded with a stellar season at Arizona. He was Pac-12 player of the year and named an All-American. His fifth and final season was solid (17.2 points, 34 percent on 3’s), enough so that Love believed he would be drafted.
When he wasn’t, he retreated to his room and cried.
“It was tough, man. Like, everybody was there and it’s getting to like pick 45, and I’m just looking around … my parents aren’t really saying anything … it was real quiet. And once that last pick got called, and I obviously hadn’t been picked it was like … WOW.”
The Blazers, after selecting Yang Hansen in the first round of the draft, had not yet satisfied their appetite for chance-taking on underhyped draft prospects. On July 1st, 2025, they signed Love to a two-way deal. Quick makes note of the storybook narrative underlying the signing: Love was the star of Lillard’s inaugural Formula Zero skills camp, and has maintained a close friendship and mentorship with the nine-time All Star ever since:
Amid his struggles to find his footing and place within the college landscape, Love in 2022 received an invitation to attend the inaugural Formula Zero basketball camp, put on by Lillard.
The invitation was a thrill for Love because Lillard was his favorite player. They were similar in build. They had similar shot mechanics. And Love admired how Lillard played for a small school (Weber State) and fought through a broken foot in college to become the sixth overall pick and NBA Rookie of the Year.
After beginning the season out of the rotation, injuries to nearly all of the Blazer’s active guards demanded that Love see the floor. Despite early struggles, Love has improved every month. In the month of January, he has averaged nearly 16 points while shooting 37.8% from three on 8.2 attempts per game. According to Quick, this is no surprise to Lillard – Dame says that he believed in Love from the get-go.
“The Trail Blazers offered [Love] a two-way contract, a tool NBA teams use to develop players by splitting their time between the G League and the parent team…
Lillard said he wasn’t consulted about Love, but he said he had an immediate thought when he heard the Blazers had signed him.
‘He’s going to make the team,’ Lillard said .’That’s the first thing I thought: He is going to make our team.’”
Quick goes into much more detail on all these storylines in the piece, with more quotes and insights. The Athletic requires a subscription, but NBA.com has made the full piece available here.
