The Atlanta Hawks tried to trade power forward John Collins to the Utah Jazz, according to NBA insider Jake Fischer of Yahoo Sports. However, no deal was reached.
“The Hawks also re-engaged the Jazz about trading John Collins to Utah, sources said, but no deals for Atlanta’s veterans ever materialized,” Fischer wrote.
Collins averaged 13.1 points, 6.5 rebounds and 1.2 assists in 2022-23 for the Hawks while shooting 50.8% from the field, 29.2% from beyond the arc and 80.3% from the free-throw line. He signed a five-year, $125 million contract with Atlanta in August 2021.
The 25-year-old Collins has been in trade rumors for the past few seasons. The Hawks always seem open to moving the forward, but they end up never pulling the trigger.
It will be fascinating to see what Atlanta does with Collins this summer. The Utah native has career averages of 15.8 points, 8.0 rebounds and 1.5 assists. He was the 19th overall pick in the 2017 draft out of Wake Forest.
One NBA writer has urged the Hawks to trade Collins this offseason. Bleacher Report’s Grant Hughes thinks the Hawks need to trade Collins for “shooting.”
“Three-point shooting is valuable, and overpaid tweener forwards with downward-trending stats are not,” Hughes wrote. “Those facts complicate the Atlanta Hawks’ offseason, but they still need to move John Collins in exchange for some floor-spacing. In a perfect world, they’ll figure out a way to do so while trimming salary from a cap sheet projected to be about $10 million over the luxury tax line.”
“Collins shot just 29.2 percent from deep this past season, continuing a four-year slide in long-range accuracy rate,” Hughes explained. “Swapping him out for someone who can reliably knock down threes, ideally on a smaller contract, would help the Hawks keep their roster-building options open and address a key weakness on offense.”
More must-reads: