CJ McCollum

For a player approaching a tenth-consecutive NBA campaign as a 20-point scorer, CJ McCollum’s trophy case suggests that the season-by-season brilliance, in some ways, has quietly flown under the radar. As he ascended to heights that nearly no New Orleans Pelicans player had on January 3, 2025’s scoreboard, though, the final box score’s numbers — and subsequent praise from the 15,451 in attendance — couldn’t have been much louder. Nearly unrivaled in his collection of ways to put the leather through the nylon, the electrifying 12-year veteran introduced nearly all of them against the Washington Wizards. The itinerary included heat check-type pull-up jumpers, nifty in-rhythm dribbles that created opportunities for three-level scoring, and by evening’s end, the third-most single-game points by a Pelican. The victory also underscored McCollum’s generational ability to light up a scoreboard in limited time, as he became just NBA history’s second player since 1955-56 to accumulate multiple 50-point outbursts in under 31 minutes. Crafty James’ second career 50-piece arrived on eye-opening efficiency (18-of-27), alongside three rebounds, two assists, and 10 trifectas.