Portland Trail Blazers: It’s time for a discussion on C.J. McCollum’s legacy

How prospects of the future benefit from McCollum’s legacy

In a perfect world twenty or so years from now, historians (statisticians, even) are somewhere, still finding ways to keep the basketball legacies of players like CJ McCollum alive, All-Star Game or not. If that feels ambitious, it shouldn’t be. For two reasons:

Segue with me to game seven of last season’s Western Conference Semifinals against the Denver Nuggets, rightfully the most Hardwood Classic-esque moment of his career. The shot chart that night — 17-of-29 for 37 points in totality — looked like a children’s connect-the-dots book. The coup de grâce that night, three Kobe-like stepbacks from the mostly-extinct midrange area, became something so satisfying, so analytically ironic, that even LeBron James had to speak out on it.

But it was what McCollum said after the game that resonates to why his legacy shouldn’t be overlooked despite a lack of hardware — an ode to future players well beyond his competitive days:

"“Honestly, I’ve got enough motivation. I got it out the mud. I went to Lehigh University. No one’s ever been drafted out of here before, so for me, it’s just about showing what I can do every night, and keeping the door open for the next mid-major.”"

For the fan that bases “greatness” on All-Star trips, or appearances on All-NBA ballots, this is immaterial. But on the “special scale,” looking down the list of players from your university, and seeing that the list not only begins, but ends at you, invariably takes a different monster.

McCollum alluded to how it would ensure the door remain cracked for the next non-Duke, non-Kentucky, major player. Little did we know, the effects of said assurance would begin almost immediately.

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This past summer, the Memphis Grizzlies took a flyer on then Murray State guard Ja Morant, and made him the earliest mid-major selected since 1998 (Michael Olowokandi). The last time a guard was taken that early, the New York Knicks were NBA champions, in 1973 with No. 1 pick Doug Collins.

You can’t look my keyboard through its eyes (?) and convince me that this is happening without players like McCollum, Lillard, Stephen Curry and even George Hill blossoming into guards that proved they could be focal points on contending clubs.

And even if voting fans never validate him as one of the 12 best players in the Western Conference, that should be the story we tell. The story of how he bet on himself. Or the story of how McCollum — looking like someone’s MyCareer experiment as a 5-foot-2 guard at Glen Oak high school — kept attacking his dream before the inevitable, but delayed growth spurt.

Or, how about the chapter in which he was the head of a 15th-seeded dragon that upset the Duke Blue Devils in the 2012 March Madness Tournament — to this day, their only tournament win in 119 seasons — skyrocketed his draft stock, and still trusted that he would benefit with a rare fourth and final year in college?

Odds are, we were introduced to Christian James McCollum on the same day: Mar. 16, 2012. The night McCollum and the Mountain Hawks took down eight future NBA players. The message from coach Brett Reed was simple: Act like you’ve been here before. The player we see today oozes that phrase. Over a year later, the NBA was well within his view, which brought forth one of my favorite quotes.

To gauge his mental, one scout asked McCollum what comes to mind when he hears the phrase “one-and-one?” His response? “I’m shooting two.” Every story I’ve ever come across on a mid-major player stems from that root. The confidence in himself before anyone else.

And thankfully, now scouts around the league can see it, too.