Caleb Love going undrafted and reportedly signing a two-way deal with the Portland Trail Blazers on Thursday night can either be the start of something special in the NBA, similar to T.J. McConnell, or it could be the beginning of a struggle like what has happened to Allonzo Trier.
McConnell is the poster boy for undrafted players, having lasted 10 seasons in the NBA and will play a lot more after his recent NBA Finals performance with the Indiana Pacers.
Trier went from being a McDonald’s All-American and All-Pac-12 first-team selection in 2017-18 to going undrafted. He’s been out of the NBA since 2020, following a brief stint with the New York Knicks.
McConnell’s flourishing career has resulted in the most games by far among former undrafted Arizona players in an NBA career. He is at 703 and counting while gaining worldwide fame for his exploits with the Pacers. Trier has the second-most games at 88 with the Knicks in 2018-19 and 2019-20.
At the conclusion of McConnell’s career in Tucson in 2015, former Arizona coach Sean Miller raised eyebrows by saying in a press conference, “I believe that T.J. McConnell is an NBA player; I don’t really care what anybody else thinks.”
Tommy Lloyd made a similar comment about Love’s NBA future in a press conference two weeks ago.
“I’m very confident that he’s going to earn an opportunity on an NBA roster,” Lloyd said. “Then from there, he’s got to make the best of it.”
Love has a history unlike many of the college players who were drafted in the first and second rounds Wednesday and Thursday.
He played in the 2022 national title game with North Carolina and was the 2024 Pac-12 Player of the Year following his first season with Arizona. He excelled in NCAA tournament games in 2022 with North Carolina and this March with Arizona, scoring 35 points against No. 1 seed Duke in a Sweet 16 game. Duke had five players selected in the NBA draft, including the overall top selection, Cooper Flagg, by the Dallas Mavericks.
Love averaged 17.2 points, 4.4 rebounds, 3.4 assists and 1.2 steals per game while shooting 39.8 percent from the field and 34 percent from beyond the 3-point line at Arizona last season, his fifth and final year in college.
ARIZONA'S UNDRAFTED NBA PLAYERS
Former Arizona players who went undrafted in the NBA and played at least one game in the league. Team listed is the player's last NBA team.| Player | Team | From | To | G | MPG | PPG | RPG | APG |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| T.J. McConnell | Pacers | 2015 | --- | 706 | 21.1 | 7.6 | 2.9 | 5.0 |
| Allonzo Trier | Knicks | 2018 | 2020 | 88 | 19.9 | 9.7 | 2.6 | 1.7 |
| Brandon Williams | Mavericks | 2021 | --- | 74 | 16.8 | 8.6 | 2.0 | 2.5 |
| Ray Owes | Warriors | 1996 | 1997 | 57 | 10.4 | 3.1 | 2.9 | 0.3 |
| Kobi Simmons | Raptors | 2017 | 2024 | 42 | 17.6 | 5.3 | 1.5 | 2.0 |
| Mustafa Shakur | Thunder | 2011 | 2014 | 25 | 6.8 | 2.1 | 0.9 | 1.2 |
| Keshad Johnson | Heat | 2024 | --- | 16 | 6.1 | 2.7 | 1.8 | 0.3 |
| Rawle Alkins | Bulls | 2018 | 2019 | 10 | 12.0 | 3.7 | 2.6 | 1.3 |
| Gabe York | Pacers | 2021 | 2023 | 5 | 15.4 | 6.4 | 1.6 | 1.8 |
| Matt Othick | Spurs | 1992 | 1993 | 4 | 9.8 | 2.0 | 0.5 | 1.8 |
| Chance Comanche | Blazers | 2022 | 2023 | 1 | 21.0 | 7.0 | 3.0 | 0.0 |
Love reportedly made a favorable impression on the Blazers’ brass during a recent workout.
One of Portland’s assistant coaches under Chauncey Billups is former Arizona guard Quinton Crawford, hired June 11 after leading the Sacramento Kings’ affiliate to the G-League championship.
Love told media after the workout in Portland that he wants to show his worth defensively.
“That’s something that a lot of scouts and a lot of my coaches have been saying that I need to be great at to get on the floor, so that’s what I’m mainly trying to show,” Love said. “But I’m pretty versatile. Whatever role you put me in, I feel like I can succeed.”
The next former Arizona player who went undrafted with the most games in the NBA is Brandon Williams, who has played in 74 games over the last four years and is still active with the Mavericks.
He started playing in the NBA with the Blazers in 2021-22, three years after his Arizona career concluded. He suffered a season-ending knee surgery in 2019 following his freshman season and opted to end his time at Arizona in 2020 to focus on preparing for a potential NBA career.
After playing with the Blazers in 2021-22, he was in the G-League all of the 2022-23 season before joining the Mavericks in 2023-24.
Williams signed a two-way contract with the Mavericks in December 2023 and eventually reached the NBA Finals last year when the team lost to the Boston Celtics in five games.
He was re-signed last July to a two-way contract. In March, Williams recorded a career-high 31 points against the Memphis Grizzlies. The following month, he was signed to a two-year contract with the Mavericks worth $2.3 million. The contract includes a non-guaranteed salary of $2.2 million for the 2025-26 season.
The comparison of Ray Owes and Kobi Simmons exemplifies the uncertainty of an NBA career as an undrafted player.
Owes, a four-year player under Lute Olson from 1991 to 1995, was limited to 57 games in one season for the Golden State Warriors in 1996-97.
Simmons, a one-and-done player who was with Arizona and Miller in 2016-17, has played in fewer games (42) in the NBA than Owes for four different teams over a seven-year span.
He played in 32 games his rookie season with the Grizzlies in 2017-18 and then one game with the Cleveland Cavaliers in 2018-19. He played in the G-League mostly in 2018-19 through the 2020-21 seasons before playing in Poland in 2021-22. He briefly returned to the NBA with the Charlotte Hornets in 2022-23 (five games) and then the Toronto Raptors in 2023-24 (four games).
In the last two seasons, Simmons, 27, has signed with a team in Israel but never played there and he played for about a month in China last season. He signed with a Puerto Rican professional team in February and is slated to play there in the upcoming season.
Love has in his favor the knowledge that McConnell was a five-year college player like him, and both came on strong in their final seasons at Arizona.
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ALLSPORTSTUCSON.com publisher, writer and editor Javier Morales is a former Arizona Press Club award winner. He is a former Arizona Daily Star beat reporter for the Arizona basketball team, including when the Wildcats won the 1996-97 NCAA title. He has also written articles for CollegeAD.com, Bleacher Report, Lindy’s Sports, TucsonCitizen.com, The Arizona Republic, Sporting News and Baseball America, among many other publications. He has also authored the book “The Highest Form of Living”, which is available at Amazon. He became an educator in 2016 and is presently a special education teacher at Sunnyside High School in the Sunnyside Unified School District.
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