CJ McCollum

  CJ McCollum

When CJ McCollum was in his first year in high school, he was only 1,58m tall, but luckily for him, his body grew kind of late with a few extra centimetres, making him a prospect for the college recruitment. Fast forwarding to his professional career, McCollum was selected by the Portland Trail Blazers in the 2013 NBA Draft with the 10^th overall pick. During his first two seasons he was playing on the point guard position, coming off-the-bench, but he was struggling to find a rhythm at that position, so he became a shooting guard in his third season, and that payed off very well for him, as he exploded and won the Most Improved Player right in that season, averaging 20,8 PPG and 4,3 APG. As a comparison, the year before that he had only 6,8 PPG and 1 APG. CJ and the Trail Blazers had some tough times in the playoffs in the recent years, as they were swept by a much lower seeded New Orleans Pelicans in the 2017-18 season, and because of that failure, many thought that Portland will make some changes, but that didn’t happen. Right in the next year, Portland finished 3^rd in the Western Conference and they made a Western Conference Finals run for the ages. CJ McCollum, alongside Damian Lillard, was the key factor in various occasions. He scored 37 PTS and grabbed 9 boards en-route to a win in Game 7 against the Nuggets. In that game McCollum showed the entire world that the mid-range can still win you games, as he scored 34 of his 37 total points from inside-the-arc. Even though they got swept by the Warriors in the WCF, CJ and the Trail Blazers over achieved in that season and obtained the organization’s trust that they are on a good path going forward.