Before Trail Blazers guard CJ McCollum was considered one of the league’s best shooters; before he was not just a starter, but a star; before the perception shifted from most underrated to Most Improved, there was work. Mountains of it—climbed behind the scenes of the only Pacific Northwest show in town. McCollum’s surge to national recognition didn’t happen overnight, and Ananth Pandian of SLAM Online outlines the assent for McCollum’s Hustler’s Ambition cover issue, hitting newsstands this weekend.
Check out the following excerpt:
Drafted 10th overall in 2013, McCollum broke his left foot at the tail end of training camp before the start of his first season—an injury made even more devastating because he’d broken the same foot his senior year at Lehigh.