Trail Blazers Notes: McCollum, Lillard, Powell, Nurkic, Billups

The Trail Blazers have struggled to make consistently deep playoff runs over these last few years, but CJ McCollum appears to still be confident in what his team can achieve.

“I think whenever we step on the court, we have a chance to win a championship,” McCollum said (via Bleacher Report). “If you don’t have that mindset and that mentality, then you shouldn’t play.

That’s my mindset and mentality every year—to compete at the highest level, to really focus on being the best version of myself as a player to help us win. That being said, I feel like every year we have a chance to win a championship. But in the NBA, there’s so many things that go into that. You need a little bit of luck.”

McCollum certainly has the right mindset to succeed in the NBA, but with several teams standing in their way out West, they’ll need a little bit more than luck to accomplish what they hope to achieve.

More Trail Blazers Notes

• On an Instagram Live appearance, Damian Lillard was asked if he intends on leaving Portland, as his response was “I’m not leaving PDX. Not right now at least.” (via Landon Buford) Buford wrote up a nice piece about Lillard’s desire to win a championship in Portland, which was well worth the read.
  
• It may be tough for Trail Blazers fans to feel optimistic at the moment, but if they’re looking for some, Dan Devine of The Ringer has you covered. Devine talks about how Norman Powell made Portland’s offense even more potent, as the Trail Blazers led the NBA in points scored per possession after his arrival. Devine also believes that the hire of Chauncey Billups as their head coach could help them push harder on the defensive side of the ball. However, there’re still a lot of things that need to go right for the Trail Blazers to achieve their potential upside.

• In their latest episode, Michael Scotto and Yossi Gozzlan discussed Neil Olshey going “all-in” on Billups and he will either “sink or swim” with the hire. Scotto believes that McCollum and Jusuf Nurkic need to play the best basketball of their respective careers in order for the Trail Blazers to be a true contender. Nurkic has had trouble staying healthy over the past two seasons.