Neil Olshey thinks the Blazers waited too long to give CJ McCollum his chance in 2015-2016. He won’t make that mistake again with Zach Collins.
Like most Portland Trail Blazers first round picks, CJ McCollum injured the lower half of his body and missed a chunk of his rookie season. Instead of arthroscopic knee surgery, McCollum required surgery for a fractured fifth metatarsal bone in his left foot.
The Blazers were cautious in bringing the rookie back – he only played 38 games for an average of 12.5 minutes per.
Completely healthy for his second campaign, McCollum still played minimal minutes as a backup. Behind Wesley Matthews, he scored 6.8 points in 15.7 minutes per game.
Not until the playoff series versus the Memphis Grizzlies in 2014-2015 did McCollum get the chance to display his talent.
He saw the court for an average of 33.4 minutes in the five playoff games, over twice as much as during the regular season. It took him two games to adjust – he scored 8 total points on 4/21 shooting in 66 minutes in the first two matchups.
Then, McCollum dropped 26 points on 8/14 shooting in Game 3 to boost his confidence for the remainder of the series. He wrapped up the final three games by averaging 25.7 points per game, best of any Blazers player.
He continued the momentum by posting 20.8 points, 4.3 assists and 2.5 three-pointers per game in his third season. The 14-point increase from 2014-2015 to 2015-2016 earned McCollum the league’s Most Improved Player award.
Matthews tearing his achilles crushed Portland’s playoff chances, but cleared the way for McCollum to shine. Without the injury, McCollum doesn’t get that opportunity as soon as he did, and the Blazers keep trying to win with a team unable to even reach the Western Conference Finals.
From Neil Olshey’s interview with Brooke Olzendam on Wednesday, it appears as though McCollum’s claim to fame influenced the Blazers letting Ed Davis leave in free agency.
Olshey said that he encouraged Davis to sign with the Brooklyn Nets in a separate interview, citing the team’s need for more floor spacing as his justification.
But from his most recent sit-down with Olzendam, McCollum’s history factored into the decision as well.
Olshey said the Blazers waited too long to let CJ speed up his development and become an integral part of the team. The GM said, “…we would’ve been far better off playing CJ sooner rather than later. And I think it’s a lesson we learned.”
He doesn’t want to make the same mistake with Zach Collins, and having Davis on the roster limits his time and opportunity. Using Maurice Harkless, Shabazz Napier and Jusuf Nurkic as further examples, Olshey added,
"“They’ve really excelled when there’s been no impediment to their development. That when the minutes were there to be earned and they earned them, they were able to take over those minutes. As opposed to knowing no matter how well they played, they were going to hit a ceiling because there were veteran incumbents ahead of them.”"
Davis certainly played well alongside Collins and coached him both on and off the court, but minutes were limited with an extra big man in the rotation. Moving him allows Collins to be the go-to reserve big man, plus it enables the Blazers to employ a small-ball lineup with floor spacing from all five positions.
Losing Ed Davis was a blow to the Blazers locker room and fanbase – at least we know that Olshey had his reasons for letting the heart and soul of the team walk for $4.4 million.
The decision to let Davis sign with Brooklyn pays off if Collins develops like McCollum did in 2015-2016. The second-year forward needs to bulk up and improve his offensive game if he wants to tackle the responsibility of being Portland’s lone big man off the bench.