CJ McCollum is having an underrated season for New Orleans Pelicans | Zion Williamson injury update

CJ McCollum is having an underrated season for New Orleans Pelicans | Zion Williamson injury update

We tend to focus on Zion Williamson and Brandon Ingram but CJ McCullum has quietly been having a great year for the New Orleans Pelicans I’ll break down how he’s adapted his game this season and why it’s key to the pel’s success plus the injury report is filled up yet again

What happened it’s a Friday episode of lock on Pelicans let’s Go you are locked on Pelicans your daily New Orleans Pelicans podcast part of the locked on podcast Network your team every day welcome to another edition of locked on Pelicans the daily podcast covering your favorite team the New Orleans Pelicans and NBA part of the lockedown podcast Network your team every day

Available wherever you get your podcast and available on YouTube I’m your host Pelin Insider credential member of the media Jake Madison at NOA Jake on Twitter here with youall on this Friday final show of the week a really fun week of locked on Pelicans we’re going to

Break down CJ McCullum over the first two segments I’m going to give you the injury updates you need to know for their game against the Denver Nuggets on national TV are we back to the National TV curse maybe maybe not we’ll see I’ll give you what you need to know in the

Third segment of course thank you for making lock on Pelicans your first listen today and every day we are the number one Pelicans podcast it’s been kind of a banner week here at lockon pelicans so I appreciate all y’all who’ve tuned in whether you’re in everyday or listening Monday through

Friday or just picking one show to listen to we’ve had some big wins broken down some trade rumors subscribe wherever you get your podcast and on YouTube no one else comes to you like this part of the locked on podcast Network your team every day we got more

To talk about we’re going to keep going we cross 9,000 subscribers here for a Pelicans only show which is kind of insane to me so it’s been a lot of fun and again I really appreciate all of you and everything that you’ve done to make lock on Pelican successful today’s

Episode has brought to you by jce medical Empower yourself when you purchase a Jace case providing you with a personal supply of five antibiotics that treat 50 plus infections get yours today at JM medical.com and use code locked on to get $20 off your order that’s jal.com CJ McCullum he’s the third star

Right this is not a Zion Williamson a brined Ingram but just as important a player for this team this season he has secretly been having a tremendous year and if you look at his per game numbers you might look at the scoring and go wait no Jake you’re wrong he’s having a

Down year here that’s not the case whatsoever yes his points per game for his career is kind of down he’s averaging 19.7 points per game this season that’s down basically since like the first time he became a starter if you look at his career the first two

Years in Portland he was a role player Off the Bench his third year he went from playing 15.7 minutes to to 34.8 and went from averaging 6.8 points per game to 20.8 that season a 14o increase he won most improved player that year and he’s basically been entrenched as a

Starter and a 20 point per game score ever since then but this year right now he’s not a 20 point per game score does that mean something is going on is something off is he having a down year and I’m here to tell you like no he’s

Not what he’s doing when you look at his numbers this year and more importantly his shot shot and how he’s changed the shots and his usage this season he’s having a very good year and it’s leading the team to have to to get more wins

Right at the end of the day this is about winning basketball games over individual numbers and you’re seeing all three of the stars and Zion Williamson Bri inom and C.J McCullum doing that more this year but CJ is the one that I think has made the biggest adjustments

To his game and he deserves praise and a lot of credit for this right when they traded for him they wanted him to be a point guard originally they said they could see him as a primary ball handler as like a off the- dribble shooter scorer for this team and while he’s done

That role last year it wasn’t the best and this year with a healthy Zion Williamson with a healthy brandan Ingram he’s moved more to playing offb and you see it in his shot chart this year this is a guy who loves the mid-range but he’s shooting in terms of his points

Scored this season when you look at percentage of the points scored from mid-range it’s down 5% this year you know he is acting as a spot-up shooter significantly more than he was last season last season he was shooting spoted spot up attempts 16.5% of the time when he would take shots he was

Scoring 1.17 Point per points per possession during that this season his spot up attempts are up to 23.2 so almost a quarter of all of his shots have been spot up attempts he’s shooting on those in terms of point per possession 1.32 that’s a significant boost of that when you look

At his shot chart his shot selection here which I have in front of me here you know the percentage of field goal attempts by distance is something that I love on basketball reference he’s taking fewer two-pointers than he really ever has before right at The Rim shots are

10% of his shot attempts mid-range is just 20% of his shot attempt or short midrange 3 to 10 ft so in the paint 20% those mid-range shots and long mid-range shots both down significantly this season and three-point attempts are up in terms of what his overall shot is he’s taking

52.1% of his shot attempts from three this season that’s up from just 40.4 last season his career is just 37.1 he’s shooting or he’s taking 52 he it’s 52% of his shots are from three that’s incredible right when you look at his shot chart and more of the data

Behind it he’s doing them in catch and shoot situations right so spotting up getting the ball and launching them here you know 4.6 of all of his attempts are on zero dribbles like pure catch and shoot situations he’s taking eight attempts per game so more than half of

Them are coming on zero dribbles catch and shoot scenarios and here’s the thing he’s thriving in this role yes the overall numbers are down because his usage rate is down and building up to where we get to his field goal is 3o percentage and all of that right his

Usage rate is down he’s a guy that look has been a star player might want the ball in his hands to go and attack and kind of do his thing but it’s not his usage rate is basically the lowest it’s been since he became a full-time starter

In the league if you ignore those first two years in the league from him his usage rate is the lowest that it’s ever been by you know a couple of percentage points and you don’t hear him complaining he’s just going out and trying to help this team win more on

That in his leadership in the next segment here and defensively too so yeah his scoring’s down but when you get into some of the compound advaned metrics that measure offensive impact they’re actually all up across the board wind shares for him are up you know his offensive box plus minus is up those

Sorts of things are all significantly higher than they’ve been in a minute for him which really tells you how well he’s playing and it’s because of the three-point shooting and it’s elevating this Pelicans offense in a way that it really hasn’t been elevated before in something that they need and I have some

Numbers to share with that so CJ McCullum this season is shooting 44.7% from three when you look at guards just guards that are playing over 20 minutes that’s ninth best in the league this is not going to make him an allar you know the assist numbers are

Slightly down from him but over overall he’s playing the role that the team needs him to do is they’ve really started to unlock things offensively which is involved shooting more threes right we’ve complained about the offense we’ve worried about the offense they just put up 141 points against the

Golden State Warriors on Wednesday night the team from going from a bottom third offense in the league is right now at 11th best to go along with their sixth best defense they’re pushing almost there to be top 10 in offensive rating and top 10 in defensive rating and CJ

Callum working off ball being a very selfish player like this is a real big part of it they’ve needed the shooting around Zion Williamson around brand Ingram less mid-range more qut spacing and when CJ’s been playing like this and getting hot in just simple actions right

Spotting up let Zion kick the ball out for him right working with bi setting flare screens doing things like that I use all the lingo that doesn’t really matter here right he’s taking more threes he’s making more threes it’s really as simple as that and that’s been

A real important thing when it comes to this team and their offense being elevated and you’ve got to give credit CJ for being selfless like that and doing what’s best to help the team win more on why he’s doing that though the leadership and the defense that he’s

Bringing to is kind of surprising let’s talk about that coming up here next in today’s episode of Locked on Pelicans right now though I’m excited to tell you about Jace medical look we come to this show to talk Pelicans kind of something that brings us joy makes us

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Does I want to get into the defense a little bit early next week the defense has been good this season I want to break down exactly what they’re doing to shed some light on the A’s and O’s behind all of that we’ll see how this weekend goes how this set against the

Dall uh the Denver Nuggets and then the Dallas Mavericks and then another game against the Dallas Mavericks goes uh you’ve got three games in four days coming up here so it’s going to be a rough one for the Pelicans this will be a tough test for them but they can win

Some of these that’ll be good might be tough if guys aren’t playing we’ll look at the injury report give you what I think is going on here coming up in the third segment the final segment of today’s episode of locked on Pelicans here but I want to continue talking

About CJ McCullum first though locked on has launched the first ever National Sports 24/7 streaming Channel on YouTube locked on sports today is here for you 24/7 covering the top sports stories of the day with the local Experts of locked on plus our national shows covering

Every league go to lock on sports today on YouTube and subscribe to the first ever National Sports 247 streaming Channel all right let’s get into more CJ McCullum we just went over the offensive numbers the three-point shooting is the biggest thing thing from him here but it’s also the leadership and the defense

That he’s giving you this year because look he’s not normally thought of as a Defender but he’s not been a bad Defender this year when you look at basically every sort of defensive metric that you can measure and they’re not great there’s no real catchall thing you

Know when it comes to that the team has been okay with him defensively on the court and more importantly I think when you look at it his individual numbers defensively have been good you know the Pelicans are 2.2 points per 100 possessions better with him on the court

Now that factors in the lineups that he’s used in with things like that but defensively they’ve been better right like that’s the overall the biggest thing it’s actually 2.2 points per 100 possessions on the defensive side of the ball so that doesn’t include offense he’s been good from that side of

Everything and I think that is really important to look at that he’s just giving more of an effort on that side of the ball than we’ve really come to expect from him here and I think that ties into his leadership right that’s one of the reasons they brought him in

At the trade deadline two years ago this was a guy that they thought could really help some of these young guys they’ve been looking to find leadership for Zion Williams in particularly and others for a number of years they’ve gone through a couple of guys right JJ reick was a big

One to try and do that I think Derrik favers was one they really wanted as well CJ McCollum definitely has kind of the right attitude with all of that whether it was calling Zion out for not calling him back you know after the trade deadline during the All-Star break

And everything his first time here in New Orleans to adapting his role right being more of a spot-up shooter now look CJ also runs with the second unit sum and some of the most effective lineups have him operating out of the pick and roll and in isolation with Shooters

Around him which is leading him to score much better in terms of points per possession as the ball handler and in isolation as the pick and roll ball handler and in isolation than he has in the past and it’s worth keeping an eye on the stats of CJ and Trey Murphy

Together because their net rating together is really good you throw in Jordan Hawkins too and it’s kind of obscene it’s just very limited sample size and I don’t think we can draw conclusions from it just yet but the early returns are looking kind of good

But not in the way you think it’s more of a defensive thing than an offensive thing which is also kind of odd again that’s just noise and all those numbers that’s a digression here so he still gets to kind of lead the team but with the starters he’s learned he doesn’t

Need to be the man floor General CJ McCullum sounds great hasn’t been great in practice and to see him be willing to adjust and shift his role I think is important you remember those comments from Zion Williamson earlier on in the year when he’s like yeah I’m just like

Adjusting I’m kind of taking a backseat at times I’m trying to figure out what I should be doing look he that all went away real fast one because they started using him a little bit better Zion but also I’m sure CJ talked to him about it right if anyone’s taking a different

Role it’s CJ McCullum this year and if CJ a guy who’s been in the league that long the head of the Players Association someone that has massive amounts of respect from around the league is willing to do it for the sake of winning you would hope that Zion will get the

Message right if CJ’s doing this you know what reason does anyone not have if CJ’s going to commit on the defensive side of the ball why shouldn’t everybody be committing on the defensive side of the ball and look you’re seen Brandon Ingram and Zion Williamson more locked

In than ever before on defense I bet CJ has a role to play in that you know when you talk about culture players are a big part of that along with the head coach in the front office look at the Miami Heat was just on our locked on NBA

Podcast make that your second listen today you know talking about how Eric spoler just got that massive extension and you know Gilbert arenus was recently on his podcast saying hey you know heat culture is SPO culture it’s not a Miami Heat thing it’s an Eric spola thing I don’t fully agree with

That but spola has definitely carried some of that going forward but you know also a big part of the reason they had such a strong culture was the veteran in the locker room in Udonis Haslam who just never played but they kept around for years because of what he meant to

The team and what he would do to other players he wasn’t scared to call them out the Miami Heat are known for having a very rigorous conditioning program and conditioning test that you need to pass before you’re going to be practicing in training camp and things like that and

If you want to be part of the Miami Heat you’ve got to pass this test look guys might be like screw that I’m not going to do it I’m not going to take it seriously but when Udonis has him at age 40 is busting his butt to go and do that

That definitely sends a message to other guys if that dude is doing it everyone has to what excuse excuse do you have to not so when CJ is sacrificing when CJ is committing on the defensive side of the ball what excuse does anyone else have

To not do the exact same thing and I think that really does send a message to the rest of the team to guys like Zion Williamson to guys like Brion Ingram so when you come up with you know fake trades different things move CJ factor in that he’s willing to do whatever it

Takes is he maybe a little expensive for a spot up shooter which he’s not doing but I get what you’re saying there yeah but his contract and the extension and everything is also pretty good he’s making 35.8 million this year 33.33 3 next season and then after that it’s

30.6 in the final year when you look at the salary kept going up that’s not actually like that exorbitant in anything that I’m looking at and being like whoa what you know for the leadership that he brings the stability that he brings to this organization and the three-point shooting that’s all very

Needed the willingness to adapt everything that he brings to this team I think has been hugely important here you know he’s also one of the better you know free throw shooters on the team which is needed at times even though his numbers are down here in New Orleans

Compared to where it was in Portland for whatever reason that happens here but he’s done kind of everything you need and he’s willing to sacrifice you know this guy who’s never been an All-Star I’m sure he’d like to make an All-Star team and be on there and could he do

That by kind of being a gunner going out and scoring maybe or he could just try and win games he didn’t you know last year was the first year in his career he hasn’t made the playoffs didn’t seem to like that too much and really dedicated

Himself to the gym to being the best kind of version of himself and the you know whatever it was going to be to help him win this you know help this team win I love having a guy like that on the squad here so CJ’s been really having a

Good year definitely deserves his credit for everything that he’s brought to the team The Professional ISM the three-point shooting being real big too don’t get me wrong all that’s important as well but love seeing what CJ has done this season and then committing defensively helping this team be a lead

On that more on the defense early on in the next week maybe on what Tuesday Wednesday maybe on Monday we got a bunch of stuff to cover with the back toback this weekend then they play on Monday maybe it’ll be like Wednesday we’ll see we’re going to try and get in talk about

The X’s and O’s of the defense which might look a little bit different after this weekend but we’re going to kind of do it for a snapshot from the lost to the Lakers to where they are right now because they are terrifying and what they’re doing schematically is really

Working and there’s some pretty creative and awesome things there that’s something that’s going to be coming next week on the locked on Pelicans podcast part of the locked on podcast Network your team every day coming up injury report it’s actually like long CJ mccullum’s on there too tell you what

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Down everything you want to know about this Pelicans team we are covering it all whether it’s the X’s and O’s whether it’s the trade rumors the trade talk all of that we’ve got you here on the locked on Pelicans podcast subscribe wherever you get your podcast there’s 9,000 of

You who subscribed on YouTube I appreciate that let’s keep it growing this Pelicans team is looking fun right now tell a friend about the show as well we are the number one Pelicans podcast part of the lock on podcast Network your team every day we had over 1,500 of

Y’all join in for a little bit of time for the live show we did after that Warriors win that was incredible we might do another uh bonus live show we’ll see may maybe Friday night Maybe not maybe Saturday night maybe not I’ll give you a heads up and keep an eye here

Subscribe and you’ll get notified if and when we go live after those games feeling like maybe we do okay so let’s look at well tonight’s game against the Denver Nuggets this was always going to be a tough game but Denver is not playing particularly well I wonder if

That factors in to what the Pelicans are thinking they just got beat on Wednesday night badly by the Utah Jazz 124 111 the Jazz kind of like ran him out Denver is good right 26 and 13 third in the NBA’s Western Conference here but not I don’t

Know that that loss to the jazz is kind of like eye opening here when it comes to everything and they’re pretty healthy too Pelicans on the flip side are not healthy you know for this game against the Denver Nuggets four key guys are all listed as questionable here Zion

Williamson’s got a right quad contusion He’s listed as questionable he was listed as questionable going into the Golden State Warriors game than he played Trey Murphy Le uh left KNE tendonitis also questionable he just missed three games with all of that Brandon Ingram is listed as questionable with right Achilles soreness and CJ

McCullum is also listed as a questionable with a right ankle spring this is a tough back toback you know you have the Denver Nuggets here this is a tough one this is your final game you’ve lost I think two to them and beaten them once getting this win would be big or if

It’s um I can’t even remember how many I think they played it two three it don’t matter you’d like to get this win on the road but knowing that you’re then going to go to Dallas which is a much more winnable game you know that’s the one

Maybe you want to have your guys ready for the general prevailing strategy when you are playing on a back toback and deciding to rest guys is you play them in the one that you think you can really win right say you were playing against the Detroit Pistons on the second night of a

Back-to-back playing Denver on the first night you would rest guys against Denver and still play them against the Pistons because you want to make sure you get that win playing them against Denver if you can only pick one doesn’t guarantee you the win there playing him against a

Team like the Pistons does this is not exactly that scenario here but if they feel that the Dallas game is more winnable than the Denver Nuggets game and Dallas just had an awful loss awful loss to the Memphis Grizzlies that makes them such a disappointing team they got

Smoked 120 103 by team that didn’t have Desmond Bane or jiren Jackson Jr and didn’t have uh John Morant and then also lost Marcus Smart for like half the game because he’s out for like a couple of weeks now with like some whatever he did to his finger dislocated at something else

So you definitely feel you can beat the Dallas Mavericks more confidently than you do the Denver Nuggets so if you’re going to rest guys on the second night you know on a backto back you rest them now on the first night of the backtack and then play them against Dallas so I

Wouldn’t be shocked if all of these guys sit out and then they play against the Dallas Mavericks on the second night here and then play you know on Monday against that team to and just makes it a little bit easier a little bit better for you to try and

Get those wins against the team that you’re competing a little bit closer with in the standings here that you also have a chance to win the season series against or at least split because Dallas and the Pelicans are one in one so far so that’s kind of what I expect I I

Would be shocked if they all play the the disappointing thing is ESPN right we just talked about in yesterday show about changing the narrative around this Pelicans team right now finally you can talk about it they’re putting it together they’re playing you trust this team all of those things and then your

Next national TV game it’s like oh and nobody’s going to be playing that’s not going to be a fun situation it’s going to create more noise and narrative around Zion Williamson that’s going to all be negative but it is probably strategically the best thing one of the

Questions in the live show yesterday was like Zion’s playing and it seems like the the rest strategy and everything that they’re doing is working and the answer to that is like yeah he’s playing games they’re winning games that’s the most important thing here so even if

They do that and they kind of Punt this game against the Denver Nuggets they’ll never like really admit this right but this is again the prevailing strategy that teams use it’ll be a little bit disappointing but you’ve got to take the Long View the long Outlook with all of

This and I think that is the biggest thing so would like to make sure that this team goes out and wins tons of games so maybe it’s better to do that in two games against the Dallas Mavericks no matter what the Pelicans have done a very good job on this tough stretch of

Schedule here these three games are going to be tough if you can go you know two and one I think that would be great one and two doesn’t even look terrible here either you’d be at that point they’re four- one in January right so you’d be five in one something like that

I forget what it is and that also would work so let’s see what they keep doing here but Pelicans trending in the right direction with everything I want to see them keep it going just injuries coming up at the wrong time but I think this is

Going to be rest and these guys will be okay they’ll play minutes and it’ll end up being all fine so that’s going to do it for this episode of lock on Pelicans maybe some bonus shows over the weekend let me see how I’m feeling if I just

Need a break I’ll let you know soon with all of that maybe we’ll at least do it on one of these games maybe the Dallas game whatever one all the guys playing is probably what we’ll likely do if not both of them depending on what happens so subscribe to the lockon Pelin YouTube

Page for those shows when they go live and as always I’m your host Jake Madison at Nola Jake on Twitter this has been the lockdown podcast part of the lock on podcast Network your team every day and I’ll see you all next time

It might seem like CJ McCollum is having a down year as he’s scoring fewer than 20 points per game, but Jake Madison explains just how good he’s been for the New Orleans Pelicans. Plus, jake touches on CJ’s leadership and how he’s stepped up on defense this year. Plus, we have injury updates for Zion Williamson and Brandon Ingram.

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