It has certainly been an eventful year plus for New Orleans Pelicans guard CJ McCollum. He’s already front and center with many NBA fans as the host of the “Pull Up” podcast, but McCollum has been involved in a couple of massive league stories that will play a critical role in shaping the future.
In August 2021, he was elected president of the NBA Players Association, replacing Chris Paul, who had held the role for eight years. McCollum has already been heavily involved in the representation of his peers, serving as the NBAPA vice president for three years before ascending to the lead role.
The nine-year veteran was also the centerpiece of a trade-in February that shook up the landscape of the Western Conference. CJ McCollum was traded from the only team he has ever known, the Portland Trail Blazers, to the New Orleans Pelicans.
The situation he departed in Portland, and the one he arrived in New Orleans are both fascinating, as there has been much speculation about the direction of each franchise. Regardless of what the Pelicans end up doing in the offseason, it’s a given that McCollum’s professionalism and leadership can only be a boost for a franchise looking to stabilize itself.
Childhood
Christian James McCollum was born in Glen Oak, Ohio on September 19, 1991. CJ and his brother, Errick, were raised by a single mother, Kathy Andrews. Although CJ gets most of the attention with regards to his basketball skill set, Errick McCollum is no slouch either. He’s played professional basketball overseas since 2012 and is currently playing for Lokomotiv Kuban in the VTB United and EuroCup leagues.
Both McCollum brothers grew up playing a variety of sports, including baseball football, and karate. Andrews would often lean on Errick for additional responsibility since he was the older brother.
CJ McCollum was actually only 4’8” when he was in the 8th grade, so a professional basketball career seemed like the farthest thing from a realistic goal. In fact, he had a middle school teacher who would remind him just how infinitesimally small his chances of making it to the NBA were. He was actually a much better baseball player in middle school and was a talented pitcher and shortstop. But CJ and his brother had a close bond and pushed each other to be the best they could be in their passions. That dedication would serve both of them well in the long run.
High School
There is a pretty famous and inspirational picture of CJ McCollum as a freshman basketball player at GlenOak High School in Canton. He grew four inches from eighth grade to his freshman year and is dribbling amongst a crowd of players who are much larger than his 5’2” frame was at the time. One of his teammates, seen to the right of McCollum in that picture was future NBA player Kosta Koufos, who literally towers over the diminutive guard as he attempts to bring the ball up the floor.
But size did not prove to be an impediment to him. He used his handle, his quickness, and intelligence to become a scoring machine. It helped that McCollum grew again in each of his sophomore and junior seasons, and was 5’11” by his senior year. It’s remarkable to look back at his accomplishment with GlenOak.
He is the leading scorer in school history and set a single-game school and county record for points scored with 54. In his senior season, McCollum averaged 29.3 points per game, 7.8 rebounds per game, and 2.5 assists. It was a magnificent way to cap off a high school career that many doubted would ever get off the ground.
College
Despite some big-time production as an offensive player, schools in college basketball’s power conferences were not exactly busting down CJ McCollum’s door to recruit him. Not even the Atlantic 10 saw much potential in his basketball future. But Lehigh University were attracted to his savvy on the floor, in addition to his potent scoring ability.
Head coach Brett Reed saw beyond the physical stature, which was still a bit slight. He realized the potential the young man had and figured that he would be a great player to orchestrate the Mountain Hawks’ attack.
It turned out to be the right call, for both the player and the program. The former GlenOak star hit the ground running on the next level. McCollum scored 20 points or more 16 times as a freshman and was about as efficient as you could ask a guard to be. He shot nearly 46 percent from the field, and 81 percent from the free-throw line.
He was named the Patriot League Player of The Year in his first season in college basketball, and he would garner that same honor again as a junior. Future NBA player Mike Muscala won the award the other two years McCollum did not. Lehigh made it to the NCAA Tournament in his freshman year as well but were soundly defeated by Kansas in the first round.
In his junior year, he accomplished something that seemed completely out of reach(pun intended) just a few years beforehand. CJ McCollum finished second in the Patriot League in total rebounds and rebounds per game. Not only was his body ready for the challenge; he had a mindset that allowed him to crash the glass, rather than solely looking to score.
Most basketball fans will likely remember Lehigh and CJ McCollum most fondly for their 2011-2012 season. The team was back in the big dance that year and drew the second-seeded Duke Blue Devils as their first opponent. These matchups are usually expected to be blowouts, but Lehigh and McCollum stunned the world. Playing against the likes of Mason Plumlee, Austin Rivers, Seth Curry, and Quinn Cook, it was the Patriot League player of the year who shined brightest on the court. He led his team to a 75-70 upset of a national title favorite, officially putting himself on the map.
The senior guard cranked up his performance to a new level in his final college campaign when that didn’t even seem possible. He averaged 23.9 points per game, and simply could not be stopped. He made over 51 percent of his three-point tries that year and converted his free throws at nearly an 85 percent clip.
Portland Trail Blazers
Just as he was coming out of high school into the college ranks, CJ McCollum’s stock would be a very interesting one to keep an eye on as his collegiate career came to an end. There was no question that he was talented enough to play at the next level, but it would be intriguing to see which type of team would give him a chance in their organization. A lot of franchises gravitate towards the untapped potential of players who spent one year in college and dream about how much room they have to improve. As a four-year player, it stood to reason, at least at the time, that McCollum was going to be closer to a finished product.
As it turned out, the Portland Trail Blazers had struck gold by selecting a senior guard from a small school in the prior NBA Draft. In 2012, they took Damian Lillard out of Weber State with the sixth overall pick, and he ended up winning NBA Rookie Of The Year.
The Trail Blazers decided to go the same route in the 2013 NBA Draft, selecting CJ McCollum with the tenth overall pick. However, unlike Lillard’s playing career, McCollum would need some time to become a contributing NBA player. Head coach Terry Stotts did not include the former Lehigh scorer as a major part of his rotation in the first one and a half years of his career. The Trail Blazers had some more established veteran players on the perimeter with a little more length.
However, towards the tail end of his second season, it was becoming apparent that McCollum was too good to be an afterthought for very much longer. McCollum scored in double figures in ten out of the last twelve regular-season games in the 2014-2015 season. This led to him being an integral member of the playoff rotation as well, and he was a spark in the last three games of their first-round series with the Memphis Grizzlies.
In 2015-2016, CJ McCollum burst onto the scene alongside Lillard, and together they created one of the most prominent backcourt scoring dues in the NBA. He averaged just over 20 points per game and took home the NBA’s Most Improved Player award that season.
He never did make an All-Star team, but it was understood throughout the league that the Trail Blazers’ backcourt was always going to give opponents headaches. McCollum had a career-high of 50 points against the Chicago Bulls on January 31, 2018, and has dropped 41 points in a playoff game on a couple of occasions as well. The farthest the tandem got in the playoffs was the Western Conference Finals in the 2018-2019 season, where they ended up falling to the Golden State Warriors.
Damian Lillard and CJ McCollum were as prolific as ever this season, but both players missed a lot of time in the first half of the Trail Blazers season due to injuries. It caused them to get off to a tough start under first-year head coach Chauncey Billups, and the franchise had to decide which direction they wanted to go in.
New Orleans Pelicans
Portland decided to part ways with CJ McCollum, trading him to the New Orleans Pelicans in February. Although the Pelicans had not been doing too much better than the Trail Blazers at the time of the transaction, New Orleans elected to make a push for the postseason, which McCollum would be a major part of. Zion Williamson had not played all season, so the franchise was hoping for Brandon Ingram and McCollum to help them at least qualify for a spot in the play-in tournament.
NBA Future
It remains to be seen how far the Pelicans will go in the Western Conference, but they look like one of the most capable teams to lock in a position for the NBA play-in tournament. As for McCollum himself, the guard is now 30 years old and playing some of the best basketball of his career. He’s already established himself as one of the premier scorers of this generation. His opportunity with the Pelicans will give him a unique chance to show whether his skill set and veteran leadership can elevate a team looking to take a small step forward.
What is CJ McCollum’s real name?
C.J. in his name is an acronym for Christian James.
