That site is stupid because that trade doesn't come close to working financially. CJ for Embiid works but not adding one of the other two let alone both of them.
the time to have traded CJ to Philly was 2017-18 when Philly had the 10th pick. CJ for Redick and the 10th pick 10 Mikal Bridges 11 Shai Gilgeous-Alexander 17 Donte DiVincenzo 19 Kevin Huerter 20 Josh Okogie
I can't imagine what would happen if we use our MLE (the only real avenue we have to add someone of relevance) this summer on Meyers freaking Leonard.
He did have a triple double when Lillard was out for the Atlanta game last season. It seems at least possible that McCollum on his own team could be as good as someone like Kemba Walker.
Kemba has become a really good player and quicker than hell. He's also a pretty good PG. He's a 4 time all-star, deservedly so. And, Kemba has dealt with being the primary defensive focus of opposing defenses, night after night, when he was in Charlotte. That's something CJ has never faced
that CJ could be as good as Kemba? no, I don't believe there's much chance of that. Kemba is significantly better than CJ right now, and has been for several years. And he's only a year older than CJ
That’s the thing, CJ is not super young with loads of room to improve. He is who he is, he will be 29 in September and he’s not going to get much better. I think he can be second or third best player for a contender but not when the best player on that team is a point guard with similar set of skills. And you can get most what he offers for less and without the long term commitment.
This is kind of the big picture problem with McCollum--he really needs to "defend" the point guard position, but he can't actually be the point guard. He has more passing ability than some are giving him credit for, but he's not a natural distributor. Even as a shoot-first point guard, he really doesn't make sense as the main play-maker for an offense. Which pushes him into the off-guard position, but if you also have a proper point guard, it creates defensive issues unless that point guard is a really big one who can guard the type of wings who often play shooting guard. It's the same issue the Warriors were staring at if they kept Russell as a long-term piece--Curry and Russell together would have given the team serious, probably unsolvable, defensive issues. McCollum only really makes sense for a team that doesn't have a star point guard (so McCollum can technically occupy that job) and has a main distributor at another position. So, if the Warriors didn't have Curry at point guard, McCollum could potentially make sense there with Draymond Green. It's why his natural fit is with the 76ers, who have Ben Simmons as their main distributor as a forward. They could slot McCollum in at the 1, so that he has a like-size counterpart to defend, and let Simmons do the heavy lifting in terms of play-making for others. That depresses his value a lot, that there are so few teams where McCollum makes sense. Portland isn't one of them, unfortunately.
Perfect explanation. Besides the 76er's, he'd also fit along star players where the ball dominant player is over 6'5. So he could fit with the Clippers, Bucks, Lakers, Nuggets, Pelicans, probably a couple I'm forgetting....but it's a short list and most teams with a star I'm describing are already really good (because of that star) and not looking to shake things up. Or are in our conference. Or don't have pieces we want. Or all of the above. There's a reason guys like Lou Williams has never signed a contract over $8m, and Ben Gordon kind of capped out in Chicago. Both guys did their best work coming off the bench as Microwaves. Both guys are hard to fit as starters because they don't distribute enough and aren't good enough to be star scorers. CJ is a better player than Ben Gordon, but it's pretty instructive to look at Gordon's career stats and CJ's. CJ covers more miles than literally every other NBA player. As he gets older and loses a little of that energy, he may not age well.
Well, one thing we can all agree on is that the title to this thread is obviously incorrect for the next few months. Trading CJ is no longer something that can happen until the season ends. Whatever your opinions may be about him, rooting for him to play well for the rest of the season will help the Blazers do better and will increase his trade value.
it's interesting looking at that stat category, and when you do, the distance CJ travels becomes less 'impressive'. You need to weigh distance with average speed. He's only 147th in average speed. Some of the players who have higher average speed are Caleb Swanigan (yeah, that biggie), Moses Brown, Cody Zeller, Jake Layman, Jabari Parker, Jakob Poeltl, Nasir Little (a lot faster), & Doug McDermott knowing that a big chunk of distance traveled for all NBA players is in transition, whether offensive or defensive transition, the fact CJ moves slower than 146 players means he's probably loafing in transition...and that matches the eye test. I'm not worried about CJ, I'm worried about Dame. CJ only covers 420 more feet than Dame and Dame's average speed in 4.03 vs CJ at 4.33. Now, I'm assuming that's MPH so we're talking about a lot of walking pace in that distance, as well as some standing pace
