Portland Trail Blazers: Four statistical milestones to watch for during Orlando play

No. 4: Let’s walk a mile in CJ McCollum’s shoes….

A lot of criticism — which I’d argue is unfair — gets thrown CJ McCollum’s way, on the basis that his effectiveness diminishes when his shot isn’t falling. But best of luck to you trying to find a player who exerts more energy in his 36.0 minutes per game.

McCollum has distanced himself to ensure that for the fourth time in five seasons, he will flat out lead the NBA in distance traveled in miles.

Per NBA.com, he travels 2.75 miles per game, a light jog ahead of the No. 2 ranked Devin Booker (2.71).

He’s moving fast, too, at an average speed of 4.32 miles per hour.

And here’s the compounded stat: CJ McCollum ranks among the top of NBA with 5.1 seconds of possession with the ball, and given Portland’s historical tendency to dribble more than any team in the NBA, all of that points to one roundabout conclusion:

Load management isn’t a word in his vocabulary, on or off the floor. And historically, it hasn’t been, either.

It won’t garner McCollum an All-Star appearance, and it hasn’t kept some Portland fans from putting him in trade scenarios. But it does illustrate the type of scorer that doesn’t grow on trees — a cerebral scorer capable of taking over a game on-ball and off-ball.

Factor that in with our recent social media statistic — McCollum’s 94.9 percent attendance rate in 408 games since becoming a starter in 2015-16 — and that makes for a workhorse of a player. Regardless of whether he helps Portland raise a gold trophy, or even adds anymore hardware at this point in his career, he’s certainly made of steel.