Does this trade make sense for the Portland Trail Blazers?
There has been a need for the Portland Trail Blazers to add an upper-tier wing player for quite some team. If the option of trading for Paul George were ever on the table, that’s something the team needs to look to get done. It’s clear a change is needed after constantly running it back just to come up short.
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CJ McCollum has meant a lot to the Trail Blazers but there are limitations to having a non-elite small guard as a co-star. He hasn’t been moving the needle in the last few playoff runs. He only has reached 30-points scoring in one of his performances in his previous two playoff runs and reached a high of just 22 points in this year’s series with the Denver Nuggets.
In his two final playoff outings of the season, McCollum posted just 19.5 points per game while going a poor 37.2% from the field and 25.0% from beyond the arc. His money is made by providing dynamic scoring results and if he’s not quite getting it done in that regard, he’s undoubtedly a player to move for a talent like Paul George.
The Trail Blazers need to be very much in ‘keep Damian Lillard happy’ mode and if trading CJ McCollum isn’t something he’d be in favor of, then standing pat is the better choice. It’s just difficult to envision Lillard being satisfied with running it back after getting such little help in the NBA playoffs.
