C.J. McCollum’s Case For Most Improved Player
By Duncan Smith
C.J. McCollum’s emergence as a star is perhaps the biggest of the delightful surprises enjoyed by the Portland Trail Blazers this season.
The Portland Trail Blazers have taken the NBA world by surprise this season.
Projected by most (including myself) to be at the bottom of the Western Conference standings, the Blazers have overachieved drastically to climb all the way to firmly grasp sixth place and will probably end up in fifth as what’s left of the injury-ravaged Memphis Grizzlies fall down the standings with upcoming games against the Dallas Mavericks, Los Angeles Clippers and two dates against the Golden State Warriors before the end of the season.
In comparison, the Blazers play the Minnesota Timberwolves and Denver Nuggets and are one game ahead of the Grizzlies in the win column, which might be just enough already to overtake Memphis.
This is a team that has many things to thank for its excellent season. Damian Lillard showing himself to be a legitimate superstar has been a big aid and head coach Terry Stotts has earned Coach of the Year whispers thanks to the Blazers’ performance, but one of the biggest revelations this season has been the explosion of C.J. McCollum onto the scene.
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McCollum has been one of this season’s most improved players in the NBA and he’ll be a favorite for the award at the end of the season. McCollum played just 38 games in his rookie season of 2013-14, playing just 12.5 minutes per game and averaging 5.3 points per game.
He became a more vital rotational player for the Blazers last season, seeing 15.7 minutes per game off the bench and appearing in 62 games, but nobody realized just how essential he would be for the franchise this season.
Forced into the starting lineup with the losses of players like LaMarcus Aldridge, Nicolas Batum, Wesley Matthews and Robin Lopez last offseason, McCollum has been unleashed along with Lillard in the Blazer backcourt.
After displaying shooting splits of .416/.375/.676 as a rookie and .436/.396/.699 as a sophomore, McCollum has gone against the law of diminishing returns, taking advantage of greatly increased shooting volume while improving his efficiency at the same time.
While McCollum took 4.7 field goal attempts and 2.1 three-point attempts as a rookie and 5.9 field goals and 3.6 threes in his second season, he has taken 18 field goals and 5.9 threes per game this season. With this drastically increased volume, he has also increased his shooting percentages to excellent splits of .448/.420/.825, and averaged 20.9 points per game.
He’s even been a touch better than his full season shooting stats over the last 41 games since the Blazers turned it on for real on Jan. 10, since which they’ve gone 28-13. Over that span, he’s shot .453/.442/.847, which is a respectable field goal percentage but a staggering rate from behind the three-point line.
The Blazers have found great chemistry and leadership with McCollum and Lillard in the backcourt. Per NBAWowy, the Blazers feature a deadly offense when the two guards share the backcourt together.
Since Jan. 10, when McCollum and Lillard are both on the floor, the Blazers are scoring at a rate of 113.1 points per 100 possessions, while boasting a true shooting percentage of 55.2 percent and an effective field goal rate of 51.6 percent.
Since that fateful date of Jan. 10, the Blazers have the fourth-best record in the Western Conference, behind just the San Antonio Spurs, Golden State Warriors and Oklahoma City Thunder juggernauts, and C.J. McCollum’s emergence into the forefront of the best complimentary guards in the NBA is a prime reason for that.
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While McCollum is no MVP candidate, and not even his own team’s most valuable player, he has a rock-solid and most deserving case for the NBA’s Most Improved Player award.