C.J. McCollum: Trail Blazers sharpshooter getting even better

C.J. McCollum was already one of the best 3-point scorers in the league. How did he get even better?

Portland Trail Blazers guard C.J. McCollum has always been a great 3-point shooter. Last season, his 42.1 percent shooting from outside placed him seventh in the NBA. He finished eighth at 41.7 percent the year before.

But this year it seems that he has taken things to another level. Following the Blazers’ 127-125 victory over the Brooklyn Nets, he is now shooting 48.6 percent from 3, the third-best percentage in the NBA.

McCollum has taken up an additional part of the 3-point burden following the departure of Allen Crabbe. Crabbe was the second-best 3-point shooter in the NBA last season at 44.4 percent. Without him, the Blazers had to fill the gap to maintain their strong perimeter attack.

Pat Connaughton, Shabazz Napier and Al-Farouq Aminu — when healthy — have pitched in to make the Blazers the fifth-best 3-point shooting team in the league. However, McCollum is still the man leading the charge. Last season, he accounted for 19.3 percent of the team’s 2,272 3-point attempts. He’s bumped that up to 23.3 percent of the team’s 451 attempts so far this year.

With this improvement in shooting comes some strong performances. McCollum’s best game from long range came in a win over the Oklahoma City Thunder. He went 6-for-9 from distance and finished with 22 points. He also went 5-for-8 in a win over the Los Angeles Lakers, once again ending up with 22 points..

His best 3-point shooting game percentage-wise came in a win over the New Orleans Pelicans. He finished with 23 points while going 4-for-5 (80 percent) from beyond the arc.

Spacing is a big part of why McCollum’s great shooting is even better. He has always been adept at scoring anywhere on the floor, but his job was a made just a little harder when the Blazers lacked a reliable post presence.

However, with the addition of Jusuf Nurkic, things have gotten a little easier for him. Last season, McCollum shot 41.1 percent from long distance in the 55 games before Nurkic arrived. Following his debut, McCollum shot 45.4 percent in 25 games.

Now that Nurkic had a summer to improve his body and training camp to acclimate himself to the Blazers’ gameplan, McCollum’s percentage has improved even more.

McCollum was shooting an astonishing 51.1 percent from 3 before the Blazers embarked on this five-game road trip. He has shot 30.8 percent since then, thus his current reduced percentage.

This stretch included an 0-for-3 night in a blowout loss to the Philadelphia 76ers as well as a 1-for-4 game against the Nets. We’ll see if the 48.6 percent he stands at is either a regression to aa more reasonable number, or a small bump on the road to a record-breaking season.

Next: 2017-18 Week 6 NBA Power Rankings

The NBA is a perimeter-centric league, with more teams taking more 3-pointers than ever before. But C.J. McCollum still manages to rise above the competition and cement himself as one of the best 3-point shooters in today’s NBA.