In the first round of the 2015 playoffs, our opponent had a problem. My team (Memphis) was facing the Portland Trail Blazers, but they were missing both their first and second choices at shooting guard. Wes Matthews was out for the season with a torn Achilles and trade deadline acquisition Arron Afflalo was struggling with a shoulder strain and would only play 60 minutes all series.



So the Blazers unearthed a second-year guard named CJ McCollum and set him loose on us. After a four-year college career at Lehigh, McCollum had hardly played his rookie year and wasn’t notably effective when he did. In 2014-15, his second year, he still only appeared in 62 games and was basically on the fringes of the rotation when the team was at full strength; in our four regular-season meetings he got two DNPs and played five scoreless minutes in a third game.



Over those five playoff games, however, McCollum was one of Portland’s best players. In a series in which our...