It’s been more than a decade since the Portland Trail Blazers locked in CJ McCollum on a four-year, $106 million contract extension, and McCollum recently revisited that moment during an appearance on the “Club 520” Podcast.
He even shared the exact point where the negotiations caught him off guard.
CJ McCollum says he told his agent to accept a $97,000,000 offer before ultimately signing a 4-year, $106,000,000 contract with the Portland Trail Blazers“My agent hit me and he was like, ‘I think we’re at 97. I was like, ‘97 what?’
He’s like, ‘$97 million.’ I said, ‘Take it.… pic.twitter.com/QWG9Y97KRa
McCollum’s rise with Portland took some time. The No. 10 pick in the 2013 NBA draft spent his first two seasons coming off the bench before earning a move into the starting five near the end of the 2015-16 campaign.
Once he got there, his game exploded. After averaging 6.8 points in 2014-15, he surged to 20.8 points per game and won the league’s Most Improved Player award.
That breakout season also helped define Portland’s backcourt. McCollum and Damian Lillard became one of the NBA’s most dangerous guard duos, and their run helped the Blazers reach the second round of the playoffs before falling to the 73-9 Golden State Warriors. McCollum’s play that year set the stage for the biggest deal of his career.
Over the length of that extension, he kept delivering. McCollum remained one of the league’s better shooting guards, knocking down nearly 40 percent of his three-pointers while averaging almost 22 points per game.
Portland doubled down again before the 2019-20 season, handing McCollum a three-year, $100 million extension after the team made the Western Conference Finals for the first time since 2000. That run turned out to be the high point.
The Blazers never managed to push past that level as a group. Injuries hit McCollum during the 2020-21 season, when he played in just 47 of 72 games, and Portland was bounced in the first round by the Denver Nuggets. He was traded to the New Orleans Pelicans in the middle of the next season.
Looking back, the Blazers made their move while McCollum’s value was soaring, but the payoff never fully arrived. The franchise chose to move forward with Lillard rather than him, and that decision ultimately ended with Lillard leaving after the 2022-23 season, while Portland missed the playoffs without McCollum beside him.
The timing, more than anything, tells the story. Portland peaked at the same time as the Warriors’ dynasty, and McCollum’s Blazers simply ran into the wrong era at the wrong moment.
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