Portland Trail Blazers shooting guard CJ McCollum knows everyone is talking about the Los Angeles Lakers, Los Angeles Clippers and Houston Rockets, but he is very confident in the Blazers' chances to win the West.

Portland made it all the way to the Western Conference Finals last season, where it lost to the Golden State Warriors in four games. Both McCollum and star point guard Damian Lillard signed extensions with the Blazers this summer, keeping the two dynamic scorers in Portland for the long-haul.

In a piece for The Players' Tribune, McCollum writes he believes the West is wide-open and that the conference is “ours for the taking.”

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But the way we see it … it’s also wide open. It’s ours for the taking. I mean, if we start this season off the way we know we can, and then we get Nurk Fever back? There’s no telling where this team can go.

Our goal is to win a championship. Not to build toward it, but to make it to the NBA Finals, and win the whole thing. We’ve put the work in. We know what it takes, and we know what we have.

We have the right team, the right coach, the right mindset … and the right fans. We’ve got it all.

Now all we need to do is finish the job.

The Blazers opened the 2019-20 season with a home loss to the Denver Nuggets. They will look to get in the win column on Friday versus the Sacramento Kings.