The Official CJ McCollum Thread

He is having a down year shooting the ball. It actually started towards the end of last year. During his first 2.75 years as a starter (after Wes left) CJ was a consistent 42% 3 pt shooter. His late season slump caused him to dip below 40% for the first time since he became the starting SG. This year he’s been WAY below his previous standard, currently at 33%. When he’s not shooting well the warts in his game (passing, defending, rebounding, over dribbling, etc.) are magnified. The scary thing is the drop off started last season. Is it really just a shooting slump at this point? Can you chalk it up to a down year when it started last season? In the past I have not been on the “Trade CJ” bandwagon. But if this is the new CJ we’re in trouble. He needs to be an elite shooter to help this team win. Otherwise Neil will be forced to move him. As much as some want this done yesterday, just be careful what you wish for. His trade value isn’t as high now, and if the return isn’t great you risk alienating Dame, who will be UFA in 2 years. To me the best outcome isn’t necessarily trading CJ (unless we get a really good player in return, AKA someone better than Harrison Barnes!). I’d rather CJ just start shredding nets again like he’s done in the past. The question is . . . if/when that will happen. Even the CJ “supporters” like me are getting nervous.


CJ 3P % by season
2015/2016 .417
2016/2017 .421
2017/2018 .397
2018/2019 .338

 

A lot of players have down years in their shooting %s. Actually even though the whole league is shooting huge amount of threes, if you look player by player on those who have been good in recent years, they are really having a much worse year:

Reggie Bullock - 44.5% last year, 39.8% this year (which is bacck to normal but still interesting)
Gary Harris - 39.6% last year, 42.0% the year before, only 33.3% this year
Jamal Murray - 37.8% last year, only 33.2% this year
Darren Collison - 46.8% last year, 37.6% this year
Joe Ingles - 44% both previous years, 37.2% this year
Klay Thompson - 44% last year and over 40% all years of his career, 36% this year
Jayson Tatum - 43.4% last year, 37.3% this year
JJ Redick - 42% last year, 37.4% this year. Was over 40% for 4 years straight before.

 

What's most frustrating, Neil will never trade cj because he thinks he's a "superstar", and now CJ has fucked up his trade value so much i Don't know if Teams are even interested on MeJ, we have to live with this until 2021. I'm so tired of this overpaid ISO chucker

 

That's a perfect chart to show why CJ can be a problem though. He's the 13th best at eFG% (ignoring that TS% is a better metric) but scores the 3rd amount of points. That means that he's average at efficiency but takes a lot of shots. This is exactly the point some of us are making that he should be shooting less and taking more efficient shots. I'd rather his PPG went down a little bit if he got his points more efficiently. Guys like Tatum, Bogdanovic, and Gobert average a few less points but take way less shots to get those points, that matters.

Plus we are ignoring every other part of basketball like passing, rebounding, and defense.

 

Exactly. Completely agree.

You are only looking at 1 metric here. How about we look at some others....

• .................TS%.......AST%.....WS/48.....ORtg.......DRtg
• 2014/15.....0.534.....10.3.....0.089.......103.......105
• 2015/16.....0.544.....21.6.....0.104.......108.......110
• 2016/17.....0.585....18.0.....0.131.......114.......113
• 2017/18.....0.536.....15.8......0.108.......108.......109
• 2018/19.....0.538.....12.6..... 0.088.......109.......113

Maybe you could argue he's having a slightly lower than average year, but everything is very close to his career averages (and within the variation that you should expect). That 16/17 year is the aberration.

 

ok then. Let's at least set the stage by acknowledging that eFG's is a poor gauge of both shooting efficiency and scoring efficiency. Any shooting or scoring stat that doesn't account for FT's is deeply flawed. It might tell you something about the progression of an individual player over seasons, but it's a crappy tool for comparing players unless the focus is so damn narrow it's useless

let's look at you list thru a little different cherry-picking lens (and by the way, Clint Capela is not Houston's #2)

TS%....assist/36:

Gobert .668....2.4
Gallinari .632....2.9
Kevin Durant .625....6.1
Bogdanovich .624....2.0
TJ Warren .585....1.8
Butler .574....3.8
Derrick Rose .572....5.8
Aldridge .570....2.7
Middleton .565....4.8
Kyle Lowry .560....10.2
DeAaron Fox .560....8.3
Barnes .559....1.2
Tatum .557....2.0
Jrue Holiday .555....8.1
Lamb .548....2.4
Kyle Kuzma .544....2.6
Chris Paul .544....8.7
Clarkson .541....3.0
Gasol .541....4.8
CJ .538....2.8
Markkanen .536....1.2
Fournier .533....4.2
John Wall .527....9.1
Reggie Jackson .527....5.3
Mudiay .526....5.5
Russell .524....7.7
Murray .515....5.2
Dragic .510....6.0
Trae Young .502....8.7
Westbrook .477....10.8

congratulations to CJ, he's 20th on the list in TS%. And he's 22nd in assists as he's able to beat out some forwards and C's. Maybe not so impressive since shooting is supposed to be CJ's calling card; it's what he's paid to do and he truly doesn't do much else. You'd hope he'd show better than that

speaking of being paid, he's 6th on that list in salary, so that's a consideration. CJ is tied for 25th in the league in scoring but he's 18th in FGA's. In other words, looking at PPG without accounting for FGA leaves out some important context. For instance, all of CJ's teammates combine to score 1.27 points/FGA; CJ scores 1.15

 

I don’t think CJ is among Portland’s most valuable trade chips, mainly because of his contract. So let’s assume that he won’t be traded. So if he’s going to stay, we may as well explore ways to maximize his abilities.

Not including this season, CJ has maintained a strong percentage in catch and shoot situations since he’s been a starter. He compares favorably to the elite spot up shooters in the NBA. For example, Klay has hovered around 43-44% the last three seasons, and I think a lot of people would consider him the benchmark. By comparison, CJ the last three seasons has hovered around 42-43%. He’s actually got a superior percentage this season as well.

I realize Klay takes a lot more spot up shots, shit, they make up the majority of his shots. All I’m saying is that we should be running more plays for CJ off the ball, and maybe leaning less on him dribbling and creating for others, something he has never been efficient at.

But I feel like this has already been discussed, and I doubt Stotts is going to make the adjustment and it’ll most likely cost him his job eventually. But I’m just a fan who’s never been a head coach so I should probably just shut up and fall in line.

 

The other day Klay had 43 points and only dribbled the ball 4 TIMES! Can you imagine CJ's efficiency if he only took shots that didn't require a dribble?

 

Four times lol, I’ve seen CJ get twice that on one possession. Get that non sense outta here.

 

If CJ was used like that I bet our ball movement would improve. CJ is the only one that actively refuses to incorporate it into his game. And maybe he shouldn’t, maybe he knows he’s not very good at it anyway. But then it’s the coaches job to take the ball out of his hands, rather than enabling selfish basketball.

The only problem with that is Aminu is a shit passer as well, and so is Harkless. That’s three fifths of the lineup.

Maybe the GM should get players that actually fit together before we rag on Stotts.

Idk what I’m saying anymore just get me off this rollercoaster already.

 

I think what you might be saying is that the architect of this roster should have been fired before now

 

He definitely should be fired before Stotts.

 

Once again, against good defensive teams he looks lost and bricks shot after shot. Good luck with him in the Playoffs

 

I agree. That was a ridiculous performance tonight. What were his numbers anyway? Did he even make double-digits?

 

He thinks he's Kobe but he's Jamal.

/endrant

 

That has been proven to be an incorrect statement. He has had some of his best games against good defensive teams.

 

CJ and our first for Jrue Holiday. Who says no?

 

New Orleans?

 

But what if we throw in a modern day 7’1 stretch center in his prime?