Portland Trail Blazers: Can CJ McCollum’s return push them over the top?

Two months to the day after suffering a fracture of his left foot, CJ McCollum is set to return to action for the Portland Trail Blazers on Tuesday night against the New Orleans Pelicans. His Blazers were 8-5 when he went down, and it seemed like a promising start to the season would be squandered.

His injury came just one game after Jusuf Nurkic suffered a wrist injury which is expected to keep him out until at least the end of the month, and Damian Lillard was off to a slow start. Fortunately, Lillard heated up and has kept the Blazers afloat in their absence. They’re now 22-16, which means they went 14-11 while McCollum was out.

Can CJ McCollum push the Portland Trail Blazers over the top?

The Blazers are sixth in the ultra-competitive Western Conference in spite of their injury issues, and they’re only 2.5 games behind the fourth-place LA Clippers. McCollum’s addition to the lineup might just be enough to push them into the top half of the playoff bracket, especially if he’s able to replicate his early-season play.

Before he went down, McCollum was blowing away his previous career highs. In those 13 games, he averaged 26.7 points per game, shooting 47.3 percent from the floor and a ridiculous 44.1 percent from 3-point range on 11.0 (!!!) attempts per game. 55.0 percent of his field goal attempts came from behind the arc.

McCollum had a career-high usage of 28.6 percent and practically never turned the ball over, posting a turnover rate of 4.4 percent. There aren’t many high-volume high-efficiency 3-point and midrange shooting flamethrowers who never turn the ball over in the NBA, but at least over the first 13 games of this season, CJ McCollum was exactly that for the Portland Trail Blazers.

Damian Lillard’s solo heroics, along with contributions from Gary Trent Jr. and Carmelo Anthony, have kept the Blazers a bit better than treading water in McCollum and Nurkic’s absence. They’re a game up on the seventh-place San Antonio Spurs, which is important because that’s the highest play-in seed.

There’s plenty of room for movement in the West with only 4.5 games separating the fifth-place Denver Nuggets and the 10th place Memphis Grizzlies, and the Blazers are more likely to ascend the ranks upwards than dip towards the play-in tier once they get all their guys back healthy.

The first step towards getting the band back together takes place on Tuesday night when CJ McCollum rejoins Dame Lillard at home against the Pelicans.