McCollum Featured Inside the Top 10 of Shooting Guard Rankings

The 2021-22 NBA season is approaching quickly, and the preseason rankings are already arriving. Earlier this week, HoopsHype released a list of their shooting guard rankings for the upcoming season. A few familiar faces popped up in those rankings.

Former Trail Blazers guard Gary Trent Jr. is landed at No. 22. HoopsHype contributor Frank Urbina had this to say about the former Duke standout inside the list.

Still not even 23 years old and coming off his best season as a professional, there’s a more than solid chance that Trent Jr. has an even higher ceiling to reach thanks to his shooting prowess, and he’ll have every chance to prove that as the Toronto Raptors’ starting 2-guard in 2021-22.

Seth Curry, another former Blazers guard, was listed at No. 21.

Curry hit 45.0 percent of his threes in 2020-21, the fifth-best mark among players with at least 250 outside opportunities. The 31-year-old also ranked in the 85th percentile league-wide in overall offense, according to Synergy Sports, a mark healthy enough to put him in the “excellent” category as a scorer.

Current Trail Blazers guard CJ McCollum cracked the top 10 and landed at No. 7. McCollum, who is the longtime backcourt running mate of Damian Lillard, earned praise for his advanced metrics last season.

The results were astounding, as McCollum put up the best swing rating of his career in 2020-21 (Portland was 6.7 points per 100 possessions better with their starting 2-guard on the floor), scored a career-best 23.1 points per game while also grading out with the highest Box Plus/Minus (+3.3) and Win Shares per 48 Minutes (0.141) of his time in the NBA.

You can read the entire set of shooting guard rankings at HoopsHype.