Portland Trail Blazers: CJ McCollum has looked more average than co-star this season

CJ McCollum is the Portland Trail Blazers second-best player. But this year, he has looked more average than co-star.

Even if you barely tune into the Portland Trail Blazers, you likely know one thing: the team is centered around their dynamic and high-powered backcourt of CJ McCollum and Damian Lillard. Although McCollum hasn’t risen to the same All-NBA or MVP-conversation heights as his partner, he is often discussed as a borderline All-Star whose offense is paramount to the Blazers success.

This year, though, he’s been less effective – looking more average than co-star.

None of this is to say that the recent problems with the team are CJ’s fault, even if there will be people calling for him to be traded after the club’s recent victory against the Suns with him out of the lineup. Portland was going to win that game with McCollum in or out of the lineup.

But it is to say that Portland’s trusty two-guard has been less dominant than in past years, especially in isolation and pull-up three-point shooting.

One thing that’s struck me throughout the season has been McCollum’s willingness to take the pull-up three or long two when a big man gets switched out onto him. With the center out on an island, it feels like he is bailing him out with this type of shot rather than attacking him with a quick dribble move.

On pull-up threes this season, he is shooting 28.6%, a far cry from his solid 36.3% the year before. He is taking .7 fewer than he did in 2017-18 and has become less efficient on them. From what I can tell, it seems like he is trying to keep his mismatches honest and shooting over them when he finds they’re sagging too far off him.

The only thing is, it doesn’t feel like he’s getting enough of these mismatches to be playing with his matchup in the way he is. While it may be beneficial to scare the big man into playing closer onto you the next time, CJ is not hitting the warning shot and he seems to rarely get several attempts at the same big men.

McCollum may be attacking his mismatches less frequently because the shooting around him has been awful as of late. Al-Farouq Aminu just recently came out of a shooting slump against the Denver Nuggets and San Antonio Spurs. In the 21 games prior to that combined 6-9 from deep explosion, he was 27-85 from beyond the arc. Maurice Harkless, who has recently played more with McCollum, has hit only six of his first 21 shots from three. And although Jusuf Nurkic chucks up the occasional bomb, he is by no means a player that stretches the floor.

An opponent’s entire front court, then, may be willing to leave their man to make things difficult for McCollum at the rim. He may feel it more worthwhile to just take his chances with a rhythm pull-up three than a contested shot at the rim.

In isolation plays, McCollum is averaging .95 points per possession and ranks in the 54th percentile among players. Even Evan Turner is beating him out in efficiency, grading in the 60th percentile. Last year, McCollum was good for a point per possession in these plays and ranked in the 81st percentile.

From what I’ve seen, many of McCollum’s isolations this season are coming when the team is in panic mode. They get behind early, and he and Lillard take turn trying to force their ways inside only to be mauled or give a weak kick-out that gets deflected.

Defensively, he has been taken even more advantage of this season than last. While last year opponents 67.4% on field goals he guarded, this year opponents are shooting 75.5%. Although McCollum has never been a plus-defender, both he and Lillard adopted a strategy last year in which they would contest shots from behind their opponents when they were beaten. This year, there seems to more giving up than sticking with the play.

McCollum is ultimately making less of an impact on offense while getting torched more often on defense.

Again, this is not to say McCollum is a bad player. He is the team’s clear-cut second option. His 21.3 points per game ranks second on the team, and his plus-minus of +3.3 is better than Lillard’s. But there’s been areas of his game where he’s been less effective, and the Blazers will need him to reemerge as a guy who would be an All-Star in the Eastern Conference.

As of now, he’s just been good – not great.