After a poor showing last year, McCollum looks to shine light on Portland’s disappointing season with a Three-Point Contest title
Flashback to last year’s All Star Weekend: C.J. McCollum was set to to participate in the Skills Challenge, but gets a call the night before, and is now thrown into the Three-Point Contest field as well.
The weekend didn’t turn out how McCollum would’ve liked. He was ousted in the second round of the Skills Challenge and didn’t survive the first round of cuts in the 3-point Challenge—which even included an uncharacteristic air ball.
McCollum attributed poor preparation for the result. This is understandable given that players usually commit weeks in advance, surely having a chance to practice before.
2017 All-Star Weekend provides different circumstances this time around.
The Blazer guard once again was not planning on participating, with a vacation in mind. When his vacation fell through, he became the first player to commit to the competition.
Last year’s Blazers rode an 8 of 9 finish into the All Star break to break even at 27-27, then took down the Clippers in the first round of the playoffs.
This year’s Blazers have disappointed to say the least. Once with aspirations of contending, they currently sit 10th in the Western Conference, two games back of the 8th seed. Portland came sputtering into the break, having lost 6 of their last 8 games, and a record standing at 23-33.
Last season McCollum took his game to the next level, earning him Most Improved Player. But this season he has even upped those numbers. He comes into the break averaging career highs of 23.4 PPG on 48.4 FG%.
McCollum will look to translate that improved shooting, which has earned him high praise, into a Three-Point Contest title.
His competition includes: Klay Thompson, Eric Gordon, Kyle Lowry, Kyrie Irving, Kemba Walker, Wesley Matthews, and Nick Young.
Of those 8, McCollum boasts the highest FG%, but ranks in the middle of the pack with a 41.1 3P%.
Defending champion Thompson presents the biggest threat for McCollum. Not only because of sheer shooting ability, but his ability to feed off the crowd as he clears racks at a time—and he will.
Lowry has hit deep three-point shots, Gordon is having a career year in made threes, and Irving hit a three on the biggest stage. Matthews has hit enough threes to create a celebration. And both Walker and Young have had some ill-timed celebrations.
So, who is gonna win? Here’s how I predict the competition will shake out:
- Klay
- Kyrie
- McCollum
- Gordon
- Lowry
- Matthews
- Walker
- Young
While McCollum doesn’t get to use his herky-jerky arsenal of moves to open up his shots—since it’s just catch and shoot—I do believe that McCollum can push Kyrie and Klay.
Maybe McCollum can surprise everyone and bring back the title to pair nicely with Damian Lillard’s Skills Competition trophy. How many backcourts can say they have both of those titles?
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