CJ

McCollum

There weren’t a ton of bright spots in this one for the Wizards as they fell to 3-19 on the season and dropped their second straight after a brutal 45-point loss at the hands of the Celtics earlier this week. The 34-year-old veteran remains a decent scoring threat for fantasy purposes, averaging 18.6 points through 22 games, but he doesn’t add much else at this advanced juncture of his career. The Wizards are off until Friday when they face the Cavaliers before closing out the week with a road matchup against the Pacers.

McCollum once again led the way offensively for the Wizards, who were on the receiving end of one of the worst beatings in franchise history. And before the NBA season reaches the point where a shutdown is a realistic possibility, the concern for McCollum manager is nights like Thursday. He still played 31 minutes against the Celtics, so all wasn’t lost. But the Wizards being without multiple players capable of trimming the veteran’s workload in a blowout likely ensured that McCollum surpassed 30 minutes.

It’s a brutal blow for the Wizards, since Coulibaly is their top perimeter defender. Bub Carrington and Justin Champagnie will see more minutes, but it will likely just mean more usage for guys like Kyshawn George and CJ McCollum.

McCollum hit a clutch triple to give Washington a four-point lead with 15 seconds left in this game to help the Wizards walk away victorious for the third time this year. It has come inconsistently, but McCollum has been much better offensively in recent weeks than he had been to start the year. He’ll look to carry this into the Wizards’ matchup with the 76ers on Tuesday.

The Wizards picked up their first NBA Cup victory in three seasons of the event, and they’ve got the tandem of McCollum and Corey Kispert to thank for that. While the latter had the best quarter of his NBA career, scoring 16 points in the first, McCollum was rolling all night. He scored 27 in the first half, and the final point total was four shy of his career-high. While his season-long fantasy value hasn’t been the best, McCollum has been a top-50 player in nine-cat formats over the past week.

McCollum was the only Wizards player to score 15 or more points on Friday, but this season has been a struggle regarding his fantasy value. Shooting 40.5 percent from the field, which would be the lowest percentage of his career, the veteran guard is ranked outside the top-150 in eight- and nine-cat formats. With the Wizards rebuilding, McCollum’s ceiling is lower, and managers also have to factor in the possibility that his minutes decrease later in the season.

There simply weren’t a ton of bright spots for the Wizards in this one as McCollum was one of just three Wizards in double figures during a one-sided defeat at the hands of the rebuilding Nets. The veteran point guard has scored just 27 points combined over his past two games after exploding for 42 points against the Pistons earlier this week.

McCollum had scored 25 points in each of his last two games enter play Monday and then proceeded to drop 42 points on the Pistons. The 34-year-old shooting guard has made at least five three-pointers in two of his last three games. His recent scoring is a terrific sign that he’s started to turn it around after averaging 14.3 points per game so far this season.

It was a tale of two halves for McCollum. He got off to a scorching hot start to this game, scoring 23 points in the first half alone. That came after he had a season-high 25 points on Friday. He only scored two points after the break, and he wasn’t able to help the Wizards end their losing streak. Still, this two-game stretch was great to see from McCollum after he scored a total of eight points over the two previous games.

Having shot 3-of-19 from the field and 1-of-10 from three in his two previous games, McCollum was looking to snap out of that funk. Mission accomplished, as he shot 50 percent from the field and led the Wizards in scoring. Thirteen of his 16 shot attempts were from beyond the arc, and he has a three-point attempt rate of nearly 55 percent through nine games. When the shots are falling at a solid clip, as they were on Friday, that’s a nice deal for those who have McCollum rostered.