Portland Trail Blazers: Coach Stotts says McCollum will play less backup point guard

At NBA Media Day, Portland Trail Blazers Coach Terry Stotts took the podium and spoke about wanting to increase ball movement and decrease CJ McCollum’s responsibility as a backup point guard.

Throughout much of last season, Portland Trail Blazers fans saw CJ McCollum play a dual backup point guard role alongside Shabazz Napier when Damian Lillard went to the bench. During NBA Media Day, Head Coach Terry Stotts said that McCollum’s duties as a facilitator next season will diminish.

Last year, as Stotts mentioned in his press conference, the Blazers ranked dead last in assists. While he said the reason for this was hard to pin down, he also pointed towards a lack of ball movement in Portland’s offense.

Speaking to what people should expect next year, he said:

"“Our style of play will be a little less off the dribble, more movement, hopefully we get better shots to improve our shooting percentage, which improves our assists. It kinda goes down the line.”"

McCollum may have had something to do with the ball sticking at times. Though he does plenty of scoring on his own, he averaged only 3.4 assists per game on 1.9 turnovers. According to basketball-reference, nearly half (72) of his 151 total turnovers last year came off bad passes.

CJ also held only a 15.8 percent assist percentage compared to Lillard’s 30.9, meaning the offense likely created far less shots for others when he was at the helm.

For this upcoming year, Stotts appears more than willing to try different players in the backup point guard role to keep CJ more as a beneficiary than a creator:

"“I mentioned we brought shooters, but Seth [Curry] is a very good ball handler. Nik Stauskas is a good ball handler. Wade Baldwin is a good ball handler. Getting Evan [Turner] more involved in the playmaking, so that responsibility doesn’t fall entirely on CJ as a backup point guard…“I think with the makeup of the roster now, with the players that we’ve added, I don’t see him [CJ] having that same amount of responsibility. Obviously he’ll still be put in those positions, the ball will still be in his hands, he’ll come off screens… but he won’t have the responsibility of initiating the offense quite as much.”"

If guys like Curry, Stauskas, Baldwin, and Turner to prove to be good options as facilitators, Stotts may find more freedom to stagger Lillard and McCollum less.

If Stotts elects to continue keeping one of his best players on the floor at all times, a different primary playmaker would allow McCollum the luxury of not having to shift between roles. He could always remain in attack-mode and allow someone like Curry – who may have the easier job of shifting between spot-up shooter and point guard – to do the changing of masks.

There’s no doubt that Stotts will be emphasizing ball movement this year as the Blazers will look to up their assists numbers, make use of their newly acquired deadeye snipers, and simplify McCollum’s duties to make him into an even more prolific scorer.