CJ McCollum Wants to Become ‘As Great as Possible’ With Damian Lillard

Portland Trail Blazers guard CJ McCollum made a guest appearance Wednesday on ESPN’s “The Jump”. Towards the end of the interview, host Rachel Nichols brought up how Wizards guard Bradley Beal shined without John Wall this season. She asked McCollum if he’d be interested in his own solo venture, but he emphasized that he believes in Portland’s winning culture and wants to continue to get better alongside fellow star Damian Lillard:

“I’m just more about winning. At the end of the day I know what I can do, I know what I’m capable of. I know what type of numbers I could put up if I had my own team and I know that I’m capable of doing those things, but I think it’s important that we [he and Lillard] continue to learn and figure out how to coexist so that we can become as great as possible together and win a championship.”

On the topic of how to decide the Western Conference’s eighth seed in the playoffs if the season is able to resume, McCollum said he agrees with Lillard on a play-in tournament being the right way to fill the final playoff spot:

“We had 16 games left to make a run. We had a lot of guys that were hurt, that were supposed to come back actually the week the season was shut down. So, I wouldn’t mind playing in a single-game elimination, or a best of three, or whatever the case may be to qualify for the eighth seed.”

McCollum also explained previous comments he made about NBA players living paycheck-to-paycheck. He noted that this likely applies to younger players who are still figuring out how to budget their newfound wealth:

“Basically I was saying, a lot of players are young. They don’t have a lot of knowledge on how to handle money. They’re in years 1-4, they’re still trying to structure budgets, kind of figure out how to live as NBA players.”

You can find more from McCollum’s guest appearance here, or below: