In the Portland Trail Blazers’ first week of the NBA’s regular season, spectators of the sport got to see how the team’s young roster initially measured up to some teams with young breakout talent as well.
Players such as Anthony Davis of the New Orleans Pelicans (All-NBA First Team, NBA All-Rookie First Team), Andrew Wiggins of the Minnesota Timberwolves (NBA Rookie of the Year, NBA All-Rookie First Team), and Eric Bledsoe of the Phoenix Suns (NBA All-Rookie Second Team), all got to go head-to-head with this Trail Blazer team.
Being that the 2015-2016 roster has an average age of 22 years old, many fans in the Northwest, as well as analysts across the NBA nation, were excited to see how new youngsters CJ McCollum and Meyers Leonard would fair against other talented players.
Based off of McCollum and Leonard’s week 1 performances as starters, the Trail Blazers are looking at a bag of mixed reviews.
Currently holding the player efficiency ranking of 72 in the NBA at 19.24, McCollum has been yielding a stat line that is comparable to any other solid SG in the NBA.
*(Statistics courtesy of espn.go.com) |
Good news about McCollum aside, Leonard is not have as great of a start to his season, being ranked 280 overall on player efficiency, at a rating of 4.67.Averaging a little above 20 PPG, coupled with a fairly high FG% of .442 as well as 3 assists a game, means that McCollum is able to make solid decisions when taking his shots and can potentially help a teammate get a good look at the basket too.
Noticing that in 26.8 minutes played, Leonard is only able to grab about 5 rebounds and score about 6 points with a FG% of .281, one has to assume that some week 1 jitters are in effect for the youngster.
*(Statistics courtesy of espn.go.com) |
With an average .281% success on all his attempts on the basket, Leonard might be missing his newly familiar stroke.
Furthermore, averaging .118% from beyond the 3pt line, where he takes 53.75% off his shots, has not been helping this youngster’s breakout as a starter.
It is very true that it is only week 1 of the NBA’s regular season.
Moreover, that there is much more regular season games to be played and regular chaos to ensue.
However one must also remember that in the NBA, there is a punch-first type mentality when it comes to success.
Simply put, all the new, young talent are ready to prove themselves and try to do so by measuring up and besting their peers.
That being said, so far, Trail Blazer fans and analysts alike have seen McCollum with a mindset of such.
But the same groups are still waiting to see if Leonard has a similar desire and edge about him that sets the talented players, apart from everyone else to see.
I, for one, am excited to see the development of both players across the span of the season.
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