Portland Trail Blazers: 2017-18 player grades for C.J. McCollum
By Ty Delbridge
Weakness
McCollum is a great scorer on the offensive end, but he doesn’t impact the Blazers much in other ways. He has the ability and skill to throw great passes, but he does not pick up many assists. In his five seasons in the league, McCollum has only had one 10-assist game, and it was back in 2015.
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When he is experiencing a cold shooting game, he attempts to shoot himself out of it instead of giving the ball up. McCollum has the ball in his hands a lot and demands double-teams when he is getting hot. He knows how to find the open guy; he just needs to do it more. The Lehigh native is capable of being way more than just a shooter/scorer.
He has a tendency to get really cold and had three games this season where he scored less than 10 points. In Game 1 of the playoffs this season against the Pelicans, McCollum went scoreless in the first half. In these moments, McCollum needs to find more ways to impact the game than just scoring — setting screens, passing, rebounding and attacking the rim instead of settling for jumpers.
He has a hard time getting to the free throw line even though he shoots 83.6 percent from the stripe. McCollum only averaged 3.1 free throw attempts per game this season and only averages 2.6 attempts for his entire career. He was the only player in the NBA this season to average 21-plus points per game and shoot less than four free throws a game. McCollum needs to work on attacking the basket and looking to draw contact. His backcourt mate, Lillard, averaged 7.4 free throw attempts per game this season.