A Fully Healthy C.J. McCollum Had To Miss Last Night's Game Against The Clippers Because Of A Clerical Error

Larry Brown Sports-  CJ McCollum was ruled inactive for the game after the team accidentally left him off the active roster on the lineup card submitted before the game in favor of rookie Luis Montero.

The Blazers’ website explained the error:

Each team is responsible to list the 13 of their 15 players who will be active for the upcoming game roughly 45 minutes before the game is schedule to start. The list is usually delivered by a designated member of the basketball staff, which is hand delivered to each coach, who then signs off on the list for that particular game.

But somehow, McCollum was left off the active list in place of rookie Luis Montero. Trail Blazers head coach Terry Stotts signed off on the roster after which it was delivered to the official scorer. Once the list is signed by both coaches, as was the case Wednesday night, the active list is set.

The Blazers realized their error and tried to correct it, even having a call with the league office. Unfortunately they realized the mistake too late and the change was unable to be made.



Well, I am pretty sure we all know the first sentence of the postgame press release, "Portland Trail Blazers looking to hire new designated member of basketball staff". Do you think whoever brought this list to the coaches made it through the game, or do you think they got canned at halftime? I am not even necessarily saying it was their fault. I don't know who is responsible for writing up the roster, but I do know that whoever delivered it to the official scorer without C.J. McCollum's name on it is currently looking for new employment. If I was that person I probably would have just quit the moment I learned of the mistake. It's better than fearing for your life. There's not a chance in hell Terry Stotts didn't shoot him a death stare every single time a person that C.J. McCollum could have potentially been guarding made a basket. His replacement scored 11 points on 4/10 shooting, but he could have went 3/30 with 15 turnovers and he wouldn't have drawn the ire of his head coach. There wasn't a single person in that building facing reprimand other than the Portland errand boy. 

I actually feel bad for the Blazers, this game was over before it started. Terry Stotts already had that excuse train chugging along before tipoff, and I don't even blame him. It would be impossible not to. Not only does he find out that his second best player isn't playing seconds before game time, but that player is sitting on the bench next to him completely healthy. Talk about a mind fuck. Remember back in the day when you actually had to save your papers every couple of minutes because your computer would inevitably an aneurism and lose all your work? Then whatever you typed up next was never as good as the original because you couldn't focus on anything else but your anger? That's basically the position Terry Stotts was in last night. There is no way his mind was fully focused on coaching. I bet he started each timeout with "that fucking kid" before drawing up a play for anyone else other than his lethal starting shooting guard. I guarantee there was at least on point in the huddle where he said "...and then C.J. is going to come off the screen" and someone had to remind him that C.J. wasn't playing. Probably threw his hands up faster than a drunk white kid at a hip hop concert. I bet he animatedly stomped his feet like an annoyed housewife in line at the grocery store. A professional basketball coach put at odds by a typo. If only he were wearing a GoPro so we could see how well that went over postgame.