Liberty Ballers: CJ McCollum a “Negative Asset”

The NBA Trade season is about to open up and Portland Trail Blazers guard CJ McCollum could become a hot item on rumor sheets. A heady scorer averaging 21.4 per game with a bankable three-point shot in tow, McCollum should garner interest from multiple teams if he’s put on the block. The Philadelphia 76ers will not be among those teams if SBNation affiliate Liberty Ballers has anything to say about it. The site published a lengthy article detailing the reasons the Sixers should not acquire McCollum.

The author of the piece made no bones about the aversion to McCollum:

CJ and his contract constitute a bundle that is a negative-value asset. The Sixers had the last pick in this year’s draft, the #60 pick. If Portland had offered us CJ McCollum for that pick, I would have considered taking the deal, but only because I think some other team might offer us something decent for him. If I knew we would have to hold onto him for the next few years, I would turn that deal down flat, and it wouldn’t be a hard call.

The author called McCollum “somewhere between average starter and below-average starter”, claiming that his $28 million per year contract made any deal for him a non-starter. Several NBA superstars live in McCollum’s tax bracket; he doesn’t rank among the Top 20 guards in the league.

The actual article is a couple thousand words long. Do you agree with the premise? If the Blazers didn’t already have McCollum on board, what would you think of his trade value? Comment below.