Where Damian Lillard and CJ McCollum rank among the best backcourts
By Erris Brown
The Trail Blazers’ Tandem: Damian Lillard and CJ McCollum
Career stats:
- Damian Lillard: 23.4 PPG, 6.2 APG, 4.1 RPG, 43.4 FG%, 37.1 3P%
- CJ McCollum: 17.6 PPG, 2.9 APG, 3.0 RPG, 45.5 FG%, 40.0 3P%
Let’s start with our boys first and foremost. In 2012, Damian Lillard was drafted sixth overall out of Weber State and highly touted as a lethal scorer brought in for just that. Serving as an excellent Robin to Portland’s then Batman, Lamarcus Aldridge, Lillard averaged 19 points and 6.5 assists a game as a rookie.
His scoring would increase every season since then, as he became increasingly confident in his game at the pro level. In the summer of 2015 when the city of Portland was rocked by the departure of Aldridge, the franchise turned to Lillard, bestowing all faith in the young point guard to salvage any remains of what the Blazers were expected to fall to.
The 2015-16 season for the Trail Blazers was expected to be an abysmal one, with a weak supporting cast on paper that All-Star Damian Lillard would have to carry almost entirely. That was, until CJ McCollum had come into his own and stepped up in a way very few could have even fathomed.
The year following Lillard arriving in Portland, the Blazers had returned to the lottery to select CJ McCollum with nearly an identical blueprint from selecting Lillard the year prior. He was another excellent scoring guard from a smaller basketball program, and the Blazers front office was ready to bestow their trust in him.
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McCollum’s start wasn’t filled with scoring explosions, highlight reel plays or game-winning buckets, however, much like his backcourt partner in crime. McCollum came in struggling with injuries as a broken left foot ended his college career at Lehigh. Although he had a very successful NBA Summer League and was voted by his peers to be the co-frontrunner for the 2013-14 Rookie of the Year award (shared with Victor Oladipo), McCollum’s injury bugs came back to haunt him in the league.
He only played 38 games in his rookie campaign and averaged just 5.3 points per game while doing so, albeit in limited minutes. The following year seemed as if McCollum’s career might be doomed to a downward spiral, as he injuries forced him to miss 20 games while he also struggled to score throughout most of the year (6.8 points per game).
It wasn’t until the 2014 NBA Playoffs that McCollum finally showcased how deadly he could be. A 33-point performance in Game 5 against the Memphis Grizzlies provided a glimpse of how prolific McCollum could be as a complementary piece to Damian Lillard.
This was just the beginning for the self-made 2-guard as the following season was an absolute seismic explosion for McCollum who averaged over 20 points per game during his first healthy season in exponentially increased minutes following Aldridge’s departure, leading to him winning the Most Improved Player award in 2016.
It’s not often a franchise is dealt two guards who both average over 20 a game season after season. Considering this, there’s no doubt that Lillard and McCollum rank among the backcourts in the NBA. Let’s see where and how they matchup against the rest of the league’s top backcourt pairings in the battle for who’s tops in the game.