North Carolinas Caleb Love is full speed ahead after learning how to slow down

CHAPEL HILL, N.C. — Caleb Love’s getting heated.

Not storm-out-of-the-gym angry, but definitely annoyed. It’s early August, and he’s been in Los Angeles a few weeks now, working out with NBA skills trainer Drew Hanlen. Although Hanlen’s client list reads like an MVP ballot — Joel Embiid, Jayson Tatum, Bradley Beal, to name a few — at this moment, his focus is all on Love. Specifically, getting the North Carolina guard to do one thing:

Slow down.

It’s perfectly practical advice, especially considering the dribble move Hanlen is teaching: the hang dribble, a trademark of any effective hesitation move. (A hesi, in basketball parlance.) You need that pause, that second of stillness, where a defender doesn’t know what’s coming next. Could be a crossover, a pull-up, a blow-by. But the beauty is, you decide — and the instant when the ball sits frozen in time, that’s when you pick your path.

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Love is struggling with that drill; not the handling itself, but the hesitation part. Rep after rep, dribble after dribble, Hanlen has to harp on the same simple understanding.

“I probably told him,” Hanlen jokes, “to slow the f— down about a hundred times that day.”

But tens of too-fast tries later, Love still can’t go slow enough. He slaps the ball away. “I saw it all in his face,” says his dad, Dennis, who was also in L.A. “Him getting frustrated.”

Love could’ve stormed off the court right then and there. Could’ve sped past that particular skill development session and onto the next. But then he remembers why he’s here, in a far-flung gym hundreds of miles from his St. Louis hometown or cozy Chapel Hill apartment: Because deep down, he knows that relying on his instincts, his God-given gifts, will only take him so far. Love being here at all means he understands that, and also, that he’s willing to try something new: to press pause on a preordained journey, to welcome work on himself.

For once, to slow the f— down.

Caleb Love never used to have to slow down. That was his thing, actually: being a 6-foot-4 bundle of burst and bounce, Bullet Bill on the basketball court. Lull opponents to sleep? Why bother, when you can race right by ’em? It’s what made Love a five-star, top-15 national prospect in high school, and seemingly a lock to become a lottery pick: the straight-line speed in transition, and the oozing, overpowering athleticism. Talk about fast-track — that was Love’s play and his pathway, his figurative and literal legacy. So much so that midway through Love’s high school career, Boston Celtics star Jayson Tatum set aside time during the NBA All-Star break to get eyes on St. Louis’ next star-in-the-making. “Everybody’s telling me how Caleb Love got taller, and how he’s the best player in the state,” says Tatum, whose father, Justin, coached Love’s prep team, “so I came back to watch him play.”

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Love’s combination of speed, size and swagger understandably made him the crown jewel of Roy Williams’ final recruiting class. Love assumed he would follow the one-and-done framework set by UNC’s two previous starting point guards, Coby White and Cole Anthony.

Part of Love’s supreme confidence in himself stemmed from his obvious physical traits: the gigantic hands, the feathery footwork. But the people around him fostered it, too, no one more than his mother, Alecia Thompson. Once Love hit high school, she had him create vision boards to strengthen his sense of self. He’d comb through magazines, cut out pictures and words that applied to his life and dreams, and glue them to a piece of posterboard that stayed visible at home. On one board: STRIVE FOR GREATNESS; UNTOUCHABLE; I will not be afraid to shine. On another: Believe in this; BE THE ONE; NO MERCY, NO FEAR. And while there’s only one shared phrase on two of Love’s early vision boards, it’s a fitting insight into how he viewed his overall game — and the obligation that comes with that talent:

RULE THE COURT.

Well … what happens when you don’t?

Because during Love’s freshman season at UNC, for the first time in his career, he didn’t. He wasn’t speedy; he was sped-up. “I was going too fast,” Love says now. “Like trying to go 100 miles per hour, probably out of control.” As a result, he had three or more turnovers in 18 of 29 games, and shot 30 percent or less from the floor 17 times. The season was a roller-coaster, oscillating between good and bad outings, with Love’s play a common litmus test. And while there certainly were bright spots — namely two games against Duke, in which he averaged 21.5 points and seven assists while shooting 53.5 percent from the floor and 54.5 percent from 3 — they were too few and far between. By season’s end, a 23-point drubbing by Wisconsin in the first round of the NCAA Tournament was merciful. “That freshman year, the only way he got through it,” Justin Tatum says, “is when it was over.”

Love finished the year as the first high-major player since 1993 to take at least 300 shots while shooting under 32 percent from the field and 27 percent from 3. “There were definitely times I wanted to …  not quit, but times I was down on myself,” he says. Social media only amplified those doubts, a constant barrage of belittlement in his mentions and DMs. “People that have never been in that position, they can tell you all these things — what they would’ve done, what you should be doing — but I understood the transition that he was making,” Jayson Tatum says. “How at first you’re just trying to kinda fit in and be a part of the team, but also trying to find your own stamp and be the star that you’re supposed to be, and it takes time.”

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Lottery pick? Future first-rounder? In six months, that plan had soured. It, and Love’s confidence, needed salvaging.

The low-water mark of it all — more so than the Wisconsin loss, or being briefly benched around New Year’s, or anything else — ironically came after a game the Tar Heels won. In fact, UNC’s 45-point home win over Louisville in mid-February was the team’s largest margin of victory all season. But for Love, it was the fifth time in six games he scored in single-digits, the worst slump he’d ever experienced. After the game, he emerged from the locker room to visit his parents in the stands. Both immediately sensed something was wrong, frustration written all over his face. “I knew he was holding a lot in, I knew that there was a lot of pressure — again, with the expectations of him coming in — and when he came (out), I said, are you OK?” Alecia says. “Before I could get a conversation started, he just started crying.”

And there Love sat, head drooped, sniffling through tears in the Smith Center stands.

“I’d never played that badly before, and it wasn’t like I wasn’t working,” he says. “I didn’t know what it was. That was probably one of the moments where I was like, man, I don’t know.”

Normally, whenever Hanlen takes on a new client, he begins by watching their most recent film. But in Love’s case, when the two first started working together in the summer of 2021 — after Loves’s freshman year finally concluded — Hanlen skipped that step.

Intentionally.

“I said, I want you to forget about it,” Hanlen says. “Let’s just focus on who you’re gonna become, instead of who you were.”

It was just what Love needed to hear. He knew how Hanlen, a fellow St. Louis native, had bettered both Tatum and Bradley Beal — two of his “big brothers,” with whom he communicates regularly — and now wanted the same guidance. But before Hanlen could build him back up, Love had to be honest about his new situation. Not only had his one-and-done dreams evaporated, but so had his belief in himself. “I think he always thought it was the physical part,” Justin says, “and not understanding that it was mainly the mental.”

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Love had never felt that level of uncertainty before, in his play or his potential. But he’d sunken to the point many highly-successful athletes do: where his sense of self-worth hinged on every made or missed shot.

When Love was younger, whenever his mom would drive him to tournaments on the road, she’d ask him the same question: Who are you without the ball in your hands? That, and the vision boards, were ways to keep young Caleb grounded, to remind him there was more to life than just what he did with an orange leather ball. Take pride in being a childhood chess champion, she’d nudge him, or playing the viola and violin. Lean into the fact that he could roll 175 in bowling, something he’s loved since he was tall enough to hold a ball. He cared deeply for his family, be they in St. Louis or Alecia’s extended side in nearby Kansas City. From the time he was a kid, he always carried himself with an air of inevitability, a Midas touch of sorts that he’d succeed in anything he attempted. Surely that hadn’t been — couldn’t have been — lost all in one season.

“You have to believe who you are before you enter an arena. You have to believe in yourself before you allow anybody to say anything about you, “Alecia says. “And you go back to that: I know who I am, and nobody can take that away from me.”

All Love needed, it turns out, was that constant reminder — and, to see something go right again. It ended up being his shot, the first thing Hanlen identified as needing improvement. “You have to be able to shoot a 3,” Hanlen told him, “if you wanna be a pro guard.” They tweaked three main things: Love’s shoulders, so he stopped fading back; his release, streamlining it to become a singular, fluid motion; and his balance, so he had a stable, shoulder-width base. Four or five days into the process, Love started hitting treys at the high clip Hanlen thought he could. “That’s when he was really feeling good,” Hanlen says, “about the tweaks we had made.”

The result at UNC? A nearly 10-point bump in Love’s 3-point percentage as a sophomore — highlighted by his game-deciding 3 over Duke center Mark Williams (and his 7-foot-7 wingspan) in the Final Four. There’s a reason a canvas print of that shot now hangs in coach Hubert Davis’ office. It offers proof of how far Love has come.

“I still believe I’m that McDonald’s All-American coming out of high school, top-10, whatever,” Love says. “I’m still that. Like, I’m still who everybody thought I was. You know, I just had to go through climbing that mountain.”

Big shout-out to fellow STL native @caleb2love! Last year, a lot of people gave up on him after a down year, but he didn’t give up on himself. Flew out to LA, bought into a shot change & put in work. Shot 26.7% from 3 last year & is at 44.2% from 3 this season. Proud of you bro! pic.twitter.com/1LDXd0gnV1

— Drew Hanlen (@DrewHanlen) January 12, 2022

Check Love’s Instagram page. There are two things listed in his bio: an email for his NIL representation, and a hashtag — DTP — with praying hands beside it.

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Dedicated to Papa.

Papa was Benny Shelby, Love’s grandfather on his mom’s side. When Love was little, Shelby was the one who first got him into basketball, despite Shelby having been a football player and wrestler himself. He had a hoop installed at his Kansas City home just for Love, for whenever the family swung through. Love was still too short for his shots to hit rim back then … so Shelby would hoist his grandson into the back bed of his F-150 truck and help him shoot from there. “He was my parents’ only grandchild,” Alecia says, “so he was a priority to them.”

Shelby was more than just Love’s shooting partner, though; he was his grandson’s biggest fan. Shelby never missed a game he said he’d be at, nor an opportunity to share life lessons. Above all? “Be focused, and never back down from anything or anybody,” Love says his grandfather taught him. “If you believe in something, you stand on that.” Especially, especially, if that something is yourself.

Last August, less than a month before his sophomore year at North Carolina began, Love got a phone call he’d hoped would never come: Papa had passed, at the age of 77.

Shelby’s death hit Love hard. Harder, perhaps, than even he could’ve known. But if there was some silver lining, it was this: all the thinking about his grandfather also got Love thinking more about Shelby’s life lessons. “He always encouraged Caleb to be himself,” Alecia says. “He always wanted him to understand how important it was to show up.” As Love entered his sophomore season, what Hanlen had done for his game was critical — but so was what his family, Shelby included, did for his confidence.

By the time the NCAA Tournament rolled around, Alecia figured Love could use another confidence boost, before stepping back onto the sport’s biggest stage. She had a custom white sweatshirt made, with a picture of Love and his grandfather right on front. “We both knew he wouldn’t be present for some major dreams unfolding,” Alecia says, “so I just wanted him to hold onto and have a piece of him throughout his run in the tournament.” Love wore the sweatshirt before every game — and, as everyone knows, the Tar Heels just kept winning. Love, as much as anyone, was the reason North Carolina advanced all the way to the national title game; his three highest-scoring performances of the season came during March Madness. “It was redemption through all the struggles, through all the adversity,” Dennis says. “That is Caleb. In fact, I was telling him, ‘Hey, you’re finally playing like you.’”

A bevy of injuries and a short bench finally caught up to the Tar Heels, though, as they ran out of gas against Kansas in the championship. From Armando Bacot’s busted ankle, to Puff Johnson getting sick on the court, to Brady Manek getting elbowed in the face, it was full-team fatigue. Yet Love — who shot 5-of-24 against the Jayhawks and committed four turnovers — took the blame squarely on his shoulders, despite his own ankle having swollen to the size of a grapefruit. “You saw flashes of him going back and speeding up against KU,” Justin Tatum says, “because he just thought he had to do something spectacular.” Not even three weeks after the season ended, Love announced his return for his junior season, declining to enter the NBA Draft — and a likely second-round landing spot — for the second straight offseason.

A year earlier, he’d been forced to slow down. To consider a different path.

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This time, he was choosing to.

“You need to get through certain things to get to a certain place, and so this is all a part of my journey, part of my process,” Love says. “The way that I took, it wasn’t easy — but it’s gonna make me a better player and a better person in the long run.”

Before Love decamped to Los Angeles this summer, he first went to Chicago, for more training around the same time as the NBA Draft Combine. Love once thought NBA executives and decision-makers would be parachuting into the Windy City for him — and make no mistake, he and everyone around him believes they one day will be — but not quite yet. “Playing-wise, there’s no question that he’s more than capable,” Jayson Tatum says. “I came in at 19, I think he’ll probably be like 21. You know, you’re a totally different person from 19 to 21, so I think he’ll be ready for it.” Love admits that he thinks about the NBA often, but he just isn’t in a rush to get there anymore.

“I’ve achieved so much that I never would’ve dreamed of. Like, I can say that I’m proud of myself,” Love says, “but I’m not there yet. I’ve got a lot more to go.”

And so does North Carolina. That’s what makes Love’s trip to Chicago all the more interesting. He didn’t just get better there; UNC’s team did, because during Love’s workouts there, he got hooked up with a promising power forward who happened to know the area well: former Northwestern forward Pete Nance. “I wasn’t even thinking about going back to school at all at that time,” Nance says. “Him and his dad were there, and they had kinda mentioned it to me, just in passing.” Nance participated in the G League combine, but didn’t earn an invite to the main event. Soon after, he announced his return to college, and that he’d be entering the transfer portal. Love, almost immediately, started his sales pitch.

“I knew that Love was definitely a big focal point of this team,” Nance says. “It definitely was appealing to me, to show that this guy, he wants to win — and he’s selfless to where he’s recruiting somebody else to the team.”

Nance’s official visit to North Carolina ultimately sold him on joining the nation’s No. 1 preseason team, but his familiarity with Love and that personal touch played a key role, too. By the time Nance committed, Love was already through some of his other summer obligations — like his NIL engagement at the Naismith Hall of Fame, for example — and on his way back to Los Angeles, to work with Hanlen.

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This summer, though, Love came to Hanlen in an entirely different mindset. Fresh off North Carolina’s title game run, he believed in himself again, but he also knew what he didn’t know. He’s goal-setting and manifesting again, even making his first vision board since high school — and that piece of posterboard now hangs on the front of his bedroom door in his apartment, where he sees it every day. “(My mom) wanted me to get back to that,” Love says, “because I was my best self then.” (He declines to say what’s on his current one, saying he’ll share that information after the season.) By the time Love finally arrived in Los Angeles, he wasn’t just hungry to work; he was, to borrow a phrase from his head coach, starving for it.

Hanlen was happy to oblige. The previous summer, it was Love’s shooting that needed improvement; this time around, he and Hanlen agreed it was his finishing — and, fittingly, his pace. “More controlled,” Hanlen says.

And for almost a month, that was Love’s day-to-day. Workout, lunch (in the gym), and then workout again. It wasn’t uncommon for Hanlen to pit him against Indiana Pacers guard Tyrese Haliburton in the mornings, and Miami Heart guard Tyler Herro at nights — on the same day. During the gap between his sessions, Love would often just stay in the gym to watch Hanlen’s professional clients hone their crafts, too. “I’d be like, hey, let’s go,” Hanlen says, “just put your shoes back on and jump in.”

As far as finishing, like with Love’s shot, there were three areas of growth Hanlen honed in on: Love’s touch; his ability to finish through physicality; and, once again, balance. “A lot of his misses were off-balance,” Hanlen says, “where he threw the (ball) at the rim and prayed, for lack of better terms.” Snuffing out that subpar decision-making is one of the last hurdles Love has to clear. Do that, and a coveted first-round draft slot — Love’s forever goal — is well within his oversized reach.

But that’ll come, all in due time. For now, Love just wants to master this hang dribble. So, sure, he slapped the ball away — but eventually, he came right back to it. Pace is hard; he knows that better than most. But if he can manage it in his life at large, a two-year process about to hit its tipping point in Year 3, then he can certainly do it where he’s always been most comfortable: on the court.

Hanlen has one more exercise he frequently does with his clients, especially when they hit a rough patch or are working to overcome something. It doesn’t have an official name, but essentially, it’s a five-year flashback. For Love, that would’ve been early on in his high-school career — before expectations grew to extremes, before the burnout, and certainly before all he accomplished last season. It goes something like this:

“Five years ago, when you were a freshman in high school, if I would’ve told you that you were gonna be in the national championship game at North Carolina, after hitting a game-winning shot against Duke to end Coach K’s career, like, what would you have done?” Hanlen remembers asking.

All Love could do was smile.

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