CJ McCollum Agrees To 4-Year, $106 Million Deal With Portland Trail Blazers

The Portland Trail Blazers have ensured C.J. McCollum won’t be hitting the market anytime soon by signing him to a four-year, $106 million max contract extension.

The Portland Trail Blazers were not enjoying themselves this time last year. The 2015 NBA Free Agency period featured the departures of LaMarcus Aldridge, Wesley Matthews, Nicolas Batum, Robin Lopez and Arron Afflalo in a mass exodus that seemingly left Portland with Damian Lillard and nobody else.

Well, it looks like Portland is intent on not letting history repeat itself. They’ve been extremely active in acquiring and retaining impact players, and C.J. McCollum is the latest name to cement his status as a Blazer for the foreseeable future.

According to Adrian Wojnarowski of The Vertical, McCollum has agreed to a four-year, $106 million max contract extension with Portland.

Portland guard CJ McCollum has reached agreement on a four-year, $106M maximum contract extension, league sources tell @TheVertical.
— Adrian Wojnarowski (@wojespn) July 25, 2016

This deal adds to a very successful offseason for the Blazers. Their only departures to this point have been Gerald Henderson, Chris Kaman and Brian Roberts — a much different cast of characters than the one that booked it out of Rip City last year.

Meanwhile, they went out and added Evan Turner, who has the potential to be a big difference-maker as the starting small forward in Portland. A statistical contributor across the board, Turner agreed to a four-year, $70 million deal back on July 1st. The Blazers also retained up-and-coming guard Allen Crabbe by matching the Brooklyn Nets‘ offer sheet to the tune of a four-year, $75 million deal.

Now, they ensure that their second-best player is locked up long-term. After all the departures last offseason, McCollum really took advantage of the opportunity, stuffing the stat sheet and having by far the best season of his young career.

Lillard’s dance partner ended up scoring 20.8 points per game while shooting 45 percent from the field, 42 percent from three and 83 percent from the free throw line. He also added 4.3 assists, 3.2 rebounds and 1.2 steals per contest. Those numbers easily surpassed his previous career highs of 6.8 points, 1.0 assists, 1.5 rebounds and 0.7 steals per game.

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In the absence of Wesley Matthews and Arron Afflalo, McCollum jumped from just 15.7 minutes per game in 2014-15 to 34.8 in 2015-16. When faced with an opportunity for more playing time, McCollum made the most of it, and now he’ll be financially rewarded to the highest degree possible with this max deal.

The Blazers may not have the makings of a championship team just yet, but by signing McCollum to this extension, they’re guaranteed to at least have a championship-level backcourt for the next several years.

Lillard and McCollum are essentially a diet version of the Splash Brothers, with both of them excelling from deep. They may not shoot 45 and 42 percent from deep like Stephen Curry and Klay Thompson do respectively, but 38 percent from Lillard and 42 percent from McCollum is something to behold in its own right.

Portland is likely just a few more pieces away from putting it all together, and this McCollum deal moves them one step closer to where they want to be. Once they acquire some more effective big men, more so than current projected starters Al-Farouq Aminu and Mason Plumlee, this will be a very dangerous team.

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With Lillard and McCollum leading the way, there’s no telling what could be in store for this talented Portland team in just a few years.