CJ McCollum weird factoid

[OkcSinceSGA]

I think this is a very good topic OP, nice job. Unique, and definitely something nobody was thinking about until now. I'm sure as you pointed out that it's a first what he's done. I think he's basically a Norman Powell. A shorter, stocky, strong combo guard. A guy who can consistently score 20 points, on solid efficiency... but he just is so bad at other facets of the game that the net result is a 20 ppg guy that doesn't move the needle for you, and at times does more harm than good with his defensive issues.

Impact metrics HATE guys like this btw. Volume scoring combo guard types with no defense or other big aspect to their game (playmaking or rebounding).

[GeorgeMarcus]

I think this is a very good topic OP, nice job. Unique, and definitely something nobody was thinking about until now. I'm sure as you pointed out that it's a first what he's done. I think he's basically a Norman Powell. A shorter, stocky, strong combo guard. A guy who can consistently score 20 points, on solid efficiency... but he just is so bad at other facets of the game that the net result is a 20 ppg guy that doesn't move the needle for you, and at times does more harm than good with his defensive issues.

Impact metrics HATE guys like this btw. Volume scoring combo guard types with no defense or other big aspect to their game (playmaking or rebounding).

Box/efficiency-driven metrics certainly do but I'd argue impact metrics can go either way, with off-ball scoring as a key identifier. McCollum scores will enough in catch and shoot situations that his value was always more positive than negative, yet people are not wrong about the inherent limitations in his game. IMO his ideal role is #2/#3 scorer on a team that allows him to defend pgs without running point on the other end. Get him some off ball screen action and let CJ do what he does best: focus on getting buckets

[GeorgeMarcus]

I caved and did some additional research on the All Star part...

Players with 10+ seasons of 20+ppg (and # of AS appearances)

Spoiler:

LeBron - 22 (20x AS)

Durant - 17 (14x AS)
K Malone - 17 (14x AS)
Kareem - 17 (19x AS)

Kobe - 15 (18x AS)
MJ - 15 (14x AS)

Melo - 14 (10x AS)
Shaq - 14 (15x AS)

Curry - 13 (10x AS)
Dirk - 13 (14x AS)
Olajuwon - 13 (12x AS)
West - 13 (14x AS)

AD - 12 (9x AS)
DeRozan - 12 (6x AS)
Lillard - 12 (8x AS)
Harden - 12 (10x AS)
Kyrie - 12 (8x AS)
Iverson - 12 (11x AS)
Ewing - 12 (11x AS)
Wilt - 12 (13x AS)

Westbrook - 11 (9x AS)
Barkley - 11 (11x AS)
Wilkins - 11 (9x AS)
Bird - 11 (12x AS)
Moses - 11 (13x AS)
King - 11 (4x AS)
Dantley - 11 (6x AS)
Baylor - 11 (11x AS)
Pettit - 11 (11x AS)

PG - 10 (9x AS)
Wade - 10 (13x AS)
Vince - 10 (8x AS)
Richmond - 10 (6x AS)
Hayes - 10 (12x AS)
Robertson - 10 (12x AS)
CJ McCollum - 10 (0x AS)

CJ is as extreme an outlier as expected, with 4x AS Bernard King being the next closest. Followed by DeRozan, Richmond and Dantley at 6x. Almost everyone else either has double digit appearances or projects to before retiring. Every player is in the HoF unless still active.

This is proving harder to look up, but I'm curious about the most 20ppg seasons for a 0-time AS outside of CJ. I can't imagine it's more than 3 or 4?

[_AIJ_]

This loser ruined my Wolves

[SomeBunghole]

I also wanna point out that CJ has made playoffs in 10 out of his 12 years in the league, which is pretty good. I know a lot is made of his and Lillard's lack of success in Portland, but we all seem to forget pretty quickly the kinds of teams they had.

This was only 5 years ago, but I had to remind myself that when they made WCF in 2019, the player playing 3rd most minutes on that Portland team was...Al-Farouq Aminu. Oof!

[Loneshot]

Always been a fan. Would love him on the Lakers. My favorite thing about his game is that he can play with any style of team for the most part, as he is a reliable scorer. He would be perfect with the Lakers current team as they are missing a go-to scorer.

[uncleduck13]

CJ is unlucky in the fact that he never played in the East. Surely he’d be a multiple time All-Star with a much higher reputation/cache. He’s a better, more consistent version of Jamal Murray.

[dennythedino]

I caved and did some additional research on the All Star part...

Players with 10+ seasons of 20+ppg (and # of AS appearances)

Spoiler:

LeBron - 22 (20x AS)

Durant - 17 (14x AS)
K Malone - 17 (14x AS)
Kareem - 17 (19x AS)

Kobe - 15 (18x AS)
MJ - 15 (14x AS)

Melo - 14 (10x AS)
Shaq - 14 (15x AS)

Curry - 13 (10x AS)
Dirk - 13 (14x AS)
Olajuwon - 13 (12x AS)
West - 13 (14x AS)

AD - 12 (9x AS)
DeRozan - 12 (6x AS)
Lillard - 12 (8x AS)
Harden - 12 (10x AS)
Kyrie - 12 (8x AS)
Iverson - 12 (11x AS)
Ewing - 12 (11x AS)
Wilt - 12 (13x AS)

Westbrook - 11 (9x AS)
Barkley - 11 (11x AS)
Wilkins - 11 (9x AS)
Bird - 11 (12x AS)
Moses - 11 (13x AS)
King - 11 (4x AS)
Dantley - 11 (6x AS)
Baylor - 11 (11x AS)
Pettit - 11 (11x AS)

PG - 10 (9x AS)
Wade - 10 (13x AS)
Vince - 10 (8x AS)
Richmond - 10 (6x AS)
Hayes - 10 (12x AS)
Robertson - 10 (12x AS)
CJ McCollum - 10 (0x AS)

CJ is as extreme an outlier as expected, with 4x AS Bernard King being the next closest. Followed by DeRozan, Richmond and Dantley at 6x. Almost everyone else either has double digit appearances or projects to before retiring. Every player is in the HoF unless still active.

This is proving harder to look up, but I'm curious about the most 20ppg seasons for a 0-time AS outside of CJ. I can't imagine it's more than 3 or 4?

Doesn't quite fit your criteria and he's a completely forgotten player, but Mike Mitchell had 8 straight seasons of 20ppg (he technically had 19.9ppg season but I rounded up).

Mitchell did actually make 1 All-Star game during that stretch.

[KGtabake]

Some shooting guards in the West during these 10 years:

Klay Thompson
James Harden
Donovan Mitchell
Devin Booker
Shai Gilgeous Alexander
Anthony Edwards

Some point guards in the West during these 10 years:

Steph Curry
Chris Paul
Damian Lillard
Russell Westbrook
Ja Morant
De'Aaron Fox


Of course he wasn't going to make it.

[GeorgeMarcus]

I caved and did some additional research on the All Star part...

Players with 10+ seasons of 20+ppg (and # of AS appearances)

Spoiler:

LeBron - 22 (20x AS)

Durant - 17 (14x AS)
K Malone - 17 (14x AS)
Kareem - 17 (19x AS)

Kobe - 15 (18x AS)
MJ - 15 (14x AS)

Melo - 14 (10x AS)
Shaq - 14 (15x AS)

Curry - 13 (10x AS)
Dirk - 13 (14x AS)
Olajuwon - 13 (12x AS)
West - 13 (14x AS)

AD - 12 (9x AS)
DeRozan - 12 (6x AS)
Lillard - 12 (8x AS)
Harden - 12 (10x AS)
Kyrie - 12 (8x AS)
Iverson - 12 (11x AS)
Ewing - 12 (11x AS)
Wilt - 12 (13x AS)

Westbrook - 11 (9x AS)
Barkley - 11 (11x AS)
Wilkins - 11 (9x AS)
Bird - 11 (12x AS)
Moses - 11 (13x AS)
King - 11 (4x AS)
Dantley - 11 (6x AS)
Baylor - 11 (11x AS)
Pettit - 11 (11x AS)

PG - 10 (9x AS)
Wade - 10 (13x AS)
Vince - 10 (8x AS)
Richmond - 10 (6x AS)
Hayes - 10 (12x AS)
Robertson - 10 (12x AS)
CJ McCollum - 10 (0x AS)

CJ is as extreme an outlier as expected, with 4x AS Bernard King being the next closest. Followed by DeRozan, Richmond and Dantley at 6x. Almost everyone else either has double digit appearances or projects to before retiring. Every player is in the HoF unless still active.

This is proving harder to look up, but I'm curious about the most 20ppg seasons for a 0-time AS outside of CJ. I can't imagine it's more than 3 or 4?

Doesn't quite fit your criteria and he's a completely forgotten player, but Mike Mitchell had 8 straight seasons of 20ppg (he technically had 19.9ppg season but I rounded up).

Mitchell did actually make 1 All-Star game during that stretch.

I counted 7 even with the 19.9 but still that's a nice find and closer than I expected anyone to get

[Doctor MJ]

Crazy stat-he is the biggest "almost All Star" of this era, by far

This is a reasonable statement to make, but I'll say this:

There are two other non-all-stars from his draft alone (2013) that I think have had more substantial careers:

Steven Adams
Kentavious Caldwell-Pope

McCollum is obviously the closest thing to a "star" of the 3 of them given his scoring focus, but as overall players, I'd favor the other two. Then you go to the next year and you've got Aaron Gordon, whose career I might favor over all of them.

Good topic about the best non-all-stars of a generation, or of all-time. Mike Conley was once my go-to guy for both questions.

[Doctor MJ]

Crazy stat-he is the biggest "almost All Star" of this era, by far

Jamal Murray probably has a better case.

Murray at his peak in those two playoff runs was a drastically better player and certainly the highest performance we've seen from a non-all-star in the playoffs in this era, and maybe ever, so I'm glad you brought him up.

But I do tend to think of these guys as being in two different categories:

McCollum is a sub-all-star level player, which we might roughly say is a guy who ranks 26th-50th among players in the NBA.
Murray is a clear cut all-star level player at his best, but he's never had a complete season playing anywhere close to that best.

[7seventynine9]

Jaylen Brown is on year 6 of scoring 20+ and never leading his team. If he stays on the C's and him and Tatum remain healthy, he has a shot.

[ijspeelman]

McCollum is a strange player. He's a very good, consistent scorer, but he's not a great scorer. He's a below-average defender and he doesn't really do much else than score, but he's very good at that. He's always reminded me of a more consistent Byron Scott with a much longer prime.

Not that he's completely reinvented himself to a true PG, but I do like that he's picked up the playmaking since he's been in NOLA.

Really makes me think he could contribute to a higher level play-off team in a meaningful way as a lower tier option, but hard to do with his current contract

[Statlanta]

20 points a game is the new 15 points a game.

[monopoman]

He is one of the most gifted scorers to ever play the game, the problem is he sometimes can get into "take all the shots" mode a bit more than he should.

He also gives up a lot on the other end, people claim Lillard can't defend but CJ is worse. The lack of all-star games is not as big of a deal as some think though, the West was always stacked with incredible guards. If he was drafted to the East he probably would have snagged at least one or two all-star selections.

The Blazers also never had a season where they were a top 2 team in the West which might have netted him a selection just because the Blazers looked so good. The Blazers had a lot of pretty good seasons, but nothing that was jaw dropping and made people question if they were a contender.

[Capn'O]

I'm thinking - there has to be somebody who was close in the 80s.

World B Free was close. He had 10 years above 20ppg with only one appearance and 8 straight without one.
Eddie Johnson was that kind of player too but didn't have quite that streak.

[SomeBunghole]

I'm thinking - there has to be somebody who was close in the 80s.

I looked at some candidates who appeared "obvious," but I didn't find anyone.

I did find this other thing. Purvis Short averaged more than 25 points a game in consecutive seasons and was never an All-Star. I figure he must be the only person to have done that, though Monta came close.

[GeorgeMarcus]

It's official, congrats on the bizarre accomplishment CJ!