Averaging nearly 6 assists per game with less than 1 turnover. 28.0 ppg is 6th in the NBA behind only Harden, Curry, Beal, Durant, and Trae Young. All Star game here he comes!
The amount of trade CJ threads and posts have brainwashed me into thinking he probably isn’t awesome haha.
I swear some people are incapable of learning.... Just got done jinxing us on curry. Now your gonna jinx cj????? i question your fandom.... and this should be a temp ban from cresting threads. please stop jinxing us with your outlandish takes that you NEVER own up to being wrong about.... If Cj goes into a slump... I'm gonna advocate a no thread starting time out for you.
CJ has been playing really well the first 6 games of the season. He's been better than any of his historical norms. 6 games is still a small sample size. Will he be able to keep it up? IDK. But this is the level of play required for an All-star selection. Some notable stats (with this season followed by [his career averages]) where he has significant improvements: PER: 26.5 [17.3] TS%: 0.589 [0.551] AST%: 29.3 [17.1] STL%: 2.2 [1.4] TOV%: 2.7 [9.3] WS/48: 0.207 [0.105] All those would be career highs by a wide margin if he can keep this up.
this is what CJ looks like when he's going supernova like Dame does for about 20 games every year. But Dame, as good as he is, can't sustain that level of production and efficiency.
If he sustains this level, he'll be an offensive superstar. I don't think he actually is talented enough to sustain this, though I hope he proves me wrong. This smacks of a small sample size that happened to happen (not awkward phrasing at all) at the start of the season--I'm sure he's had 6 game stretches like this before, but if it comes buried in the middle of a season, it doesn't change his stats much. But when it's the first six games of the season, suddenly those are his full-season stats!
I really hope he does. There is a very marked changed in the way he's playing and it's translating to advanced stats as well. Now all we need is Nurk to get back while getting our newbies going and it will start translating to wins.
CJ has been making a concerted effort to pass more, shoot more threes, and draw more contact to attempt more FTs. He has essentially shared publicly that he's trying to get more efficient by doing these things. What will change?
If it was simply a matter of "trying more," why wouldn't he have been doing it all along? I have no doubt that he's consciously trying to improve and it wouldn't surprise me if he improves a bit--but to this extent, simply jumping to a completely different NBA plane of existence because he's putting more effort into those things? That strikes me as unlikely--I think it's more of a hot streak. We've seen short hot streaks from him before, so it's hardly like this would be unprecedented. Again, though, I'd love to see him keep this up all season and make me the wrongest wrong who ever wronged on the internet.
Think you're misinterpreting what I said. I didn't just mean he's trying harder. Rather there's a very obvious change in the way he's playing that goes beyond simply effort. I said he's changed his game. He's shooting more threes than ever before. He's getting to the line more than ever before-. And he's passing more than ever before. What would cause him to revert back? It's not like he's expending more energy now.
the rumors prolly heightened/facilitated his decision to change, but the results speak for themselves. think once we start winning more and he gets the non-portland media noticing, he'll have the positive reinforcement he needs to sustain this. i dunno, maybe that's the new optimist in me thinking this (let's see how long this resolution lasts).
Lessens the chance of him being traded, if the main guy that he is rumored to be traded for, is traded.
I won't dispute the other things you said, But I'll quibble with this his FT rate so far is .182. He's topped that in 3 of his previous 7 seasons. And there's serious sample size questions about his numbers too. For instance, if you take away those 3 garbage time FT's from the last game his FT rate would be .15, which would be less than his career average I think he can probably maintain his rate of three's although I do think opponents will adjust and cover him out there better; they certainly pay a lot of attention to Dame outside the arc. And he can certainly pass more and dribble less. I do question if he can change his game enough to significantly increase his FT rate, especially if he keeps that higher three point rate