Neither CJ McCollum nor Marcus Smart is the answer for the Atlanta Hawks

Pros and cons to trading for CJ McCollum

A rather recent addition to the ledger, CJ McCollum has been one of the better scorers in the NBA for some time averaging 20-plus points for the seventh time in a row during his nine-year career. He’s shooting 43.6 percent from the floor and 38.4 percent from downtown in what is easily his worst season since 2015.

The former 10th-overall pick out of Lehigh is averaging a career-best 4.3 boards and the second-most assists of his career at 4.5 per.

He’s slumped over the past three outings with 17.0 points per game, 35.6 percent from outside, and 6-of-24 threes. But he just had an eight-game stretch where he averaged 22.3 points on 50.0 percent shooting and 40.0 percent from three with 5.0 assists, and 4.6 rebounds.

Most importantly, McCollum can get his own with 61.0 percent of his looks coming unassisted.

The only Hawks player with a higher percentage of self-created offense is Trae Young at 84.0 percent. Lou Williams, who has missed the last two games, is next at 54.4 percent with Delon Wright the next rotation player with 41.9 percent of his looks being unassisted. Even Bogdan Bogdanovic, their next best iso-player, only generates 37.1 percent of his own looks.

He’s also shooting 39.3 percent on catch-and-shoot triples.

However, aside from being prolific scorers to varying degrees, McCollum and Young have something else in common that makes this a much less attractive pairing: poor defense.

McCollum is averaging at least 1.0 steals for the third time in his career but he is a less-than-enthusiastic defender whose imitations have been pretty well explored playing next to Damian Lillard.

A similar situation playing with Young would seem to be less than ideal for both McCollum and the Hawks.