CJ was a great pick, the problem isn't his talent, the problem was always the fit next to Dame and NO's stubbornness to trade away the one great pick he actually made.
Trent? Simons? Little? Connaugton? Dame? All these guys have vastly outperformed their draft position?
Dame wasn't his ... Little has been made of glass and I'd say didn't outperform his spot just yet ... Simons is a good pick but don't think any of those guys hit the level that CJ has. I give him credit for finding diamonds in 2nd round more than he should have, but IMO CJ was the one pick he really hit on and refused to let him go.
lol...admit I'm wrong about what? How many "elite" players would you say there are in the NBA? My gauge is somewhere in the top-15; no more than that. And CJ sure isn't top-15
Well, as I said, ESPN had him rated as high as 13th best at his peak, so he's in the discussion even by your standard.
Do you actually think CJ was ever the 13th best player in the NBA? Those lists are stupid. They have always been stupid. They regularly put players above Dame who are not better than him.
no he's not because ESPN is not any standard I'd use. What year was that anyhow and is there a link to it so we can see who ESPN put below him?...need laughs anyway I mean, does anybody really think CJ is anywhere near the top-15 players in the league? Disregarding current health he's only the 3rd best on his team and that's being generous because Valunciunas has an argument as 3rd best, just like CJ
yeah, they usually are. I mean, just go down the list of the western conference standings of who is better and (who is comparable or has more value): Denver - Jokic (Murray) Memphis - Ja Morant; Bane (Jaren Jackson) Sacramento- - Fox; Sabonis New Orleans- Zion; Ingram (Valunciunas) LAC - Kawhi; Paul George Dallas - Doncic (Dinwiddie) Phoenix - Devin Booker; Mikal Bridges (CP3) Golden State - Curry (Draymond; Klay) Minny - Edwards; KAT (Gobert) Utah - Markannen OKC - SGA Portland - Dame/ Grant (yeah, I think Grant is just as good with more versatile value) LAL - Lebron; AD so then, just in the west I see 20-21 players who are better and 8 or 9 who are debatable. Even if you're a CJ fan and knock 3 or 4 of those players below CJ (who exactly?) that would still leave more than 15 and that's only half the league. there is still the eastern conference: Tatum, Jalen Brown, Embiid, Harden, Giannis, Jrue, Middleton, Durant, Kyrie, Donovan Mitchell, Garland, Jimmy Butler, Adebayo, Julius Randall? Trae Young, Haliburton, Myles Turner? Beal, DeRozan, LaVine, Siakam, Lamelo there's 20-22 more. And if you have any questions about some of these players, ask yourself who you'd rather Portland have, Cj or Jaren Jackson? CJ or Dinwiddie? CJ or Myles Turner? I'm not even sure CJ is in the top-40, let alone the top-30
But even if you go back to whatever mythical year where he was chosen as 13th best, I bet we could find 20-25 guys who were better.
"Even if they over-valued him somewhat, that's certainly in the elite mix." Read harder. It's not difficult to find... https://www.google.com/search?q=espn player rankings cj mccollum 13 Top result: https://www.blazersedge.com/2019/9/25/20884039/espn-best-100-players-list-cj-mccollum-no-13-blazers https://www.espn.com/nba/story/_/id/27691396/ranking-best-players-nba-season-30-11 As far as standards to go by, your choice of "elite" being top-15 is also questionable. That limits it to basically half the all-stars, which I imagine many teams would object to.
Blazer practice goals: 1. Make simple passes 2. Work on lob passes 3. Work on execution of fast breaks before S2 forumites start jumping off bridges.
and that list only proves one thing about ESPN lists: that Nate was right when he said "Those lists are stupid. They have always been stupid" at no point in time during CJ's career has he been the 13th best player in the NBA. Not close Yes "elite" is a subjective. I choose not to dilute it's meaning which is why I tend to draw the line at 15 as far as the all-star game being a gauge of elite....cmon man. In the last 15 years, these players have been all-stars: Caron Butler Josh Howard Mehmet Okur Carlos Boozer David West Antawn Jamison Devin Harris Mo Williams Danny Granger Zach Randolph Chris Kaman Joe Johnson Andre Iguodala Roy Hibbert Luol Deng LaMarcus Aldridge Tyson Chandler Joakim Noah Brook Lopez DeMar DeRozan Paul Millsap Kyle Korver Jeff Teague John Wall Isaiah Thomas Andre Drummond Al Horford John Wall Isaiah Thomas Andre Drummond Al Horford Gordon Hayward DeAndre Jordan Kemba Walker Kyle Lowry Bradley Beal Victor Oladipo Goran Dragić Ben Simmons Khris Middleton D'Angelo Russell Nikola Vučević Bam Adebayo Brandon Ingram Domantas Sabonis Zach LaVine Julius Randle Mike Conley Darius Garland Jarrett Allen Fred VanVleet Andrew Wiggins Dejounte Murray LaMelo Ball and of course, don't forget about Jamal Magloire! Most of those players were observably and statistically better than CJ. Many of them definitely were much better at defense. And I don't see a single one of those guys that reached the level of elite so yeah, I have a higher undiluted definition of elite that espn list you're using as your evidence was based upon the 2018/19 season; they revise it every year. That season CJ ranked (among the 183 qualified players): 47th in 3ptFG% 78th in assists 27th in scoring...but 17th in FGA 71st in PER 121st in TS% 82nd in winshares/48 73rd in BPM yeah, right...."13th best player"...."elite"
Typical wizen-stats, using 15 years' worth of fringe all-stars to represent an annual number (e.g., roughly half the yearly group). That's a little over 3 per year, and several of them were definitely elite when they earned their All-Star spots. It's amusing how transparent your attempts to misrepresent statistics has become.