Trail Blazers guard CJ McCollum joined Tuesday’s edition of “The Jim Rome Show” for an interview that touched on a number of topics from McCollum’s thoughts on winning the NBA’s 2016 Most Improved Player Award to his relationship with his brother Errick, who currently plays professionally in China. And of course, the conversation eventually touched on the start of Portland’s 2016-17 season, which has been somewhat disappointing for a team that won 44 games and made it to the second round of the Western Conference playoffs last season. You can listen to the entire interview below, though I’ve also transcribed some of the more interesting quotes…
----------------On starting the season 9-10 after entering the year with high expectations…CJ McCollum: "I think it’s been interesting, dealing with a different set of circumstances and expectations. I think we’ve done a decent job of performing but we haven’t lived up to our own individual expectations and our team expectations. Being under .500 right now close to 20 games into the season is not where we want to be, but at the same time we understand we have 60-plus games left and a lot of time to kind of turn the tide. And it’s going to start with us continuing to be engaged and locked in at the defensive end and continuing to take each practice seriously and understanding that when we do have these week stretches where we’re at home and we have off days and are able to get practices in, we need to be winning these games."On what the team needs to do to improve their defense…CJ McCollum: "We need to play like somebody took our lunch money, like somebody disrespected your mother. I think that’s the type of anger you need have and the aggression you need to have on the court. That doesn’t mean making mad faces or mean faces but it means attacking the glass, strongly attacking the rim when you have the ball on offense. If somebody is about to get a layup, commit that foul and make sure they don’t get the ball up."On how a player manufactures that kind of emotion…CJ McCollum: “I think it just comes from within. You got to kind of psyche yourself out, convince yourself. It’s kind of like when you see guys get going during the game, maybe it’s somebody talking trash to them and they feel like they were disrespected, or maybe it’s an article they read about them, maybe a reporter was dogging them out. It brings you a different type of fire, a different type of rage that you just have to figure out how to get that to come out from within, it’s different for everyone.”