John Collins Traded - Fare thee well!

[AHF]

34 minutes ago, Packfill said:

I am likely in the minority but I don’t think Collin’s contract is that bad. $25m for a starting caliber power forward is not out of line with the market, particularly when you are paying for prime years. It is not a bargain but far from an albatross contract. Vucevic’s contract is for less money and years because he is already 30+ and in decline. 

The reason that contract does not work for the Hawks is the timing of the rebuild and so many players being on, or soon needing, second and third contracts. Team building is a very hard needle to thread. 

In terms of value, I think the thing that speaks the loudest is the return on the trade (granting that if this trade was done to get us under the tax line then the return was constrained because you weren't going to take back a similar amount of salary).  But there was not team, for example, that had ~$18M in cap space and was willing to give a first round pick for JC or he would have been traded there. 

I agree with you that us being in the tax prior to the trade with contract extensions coming up was the driver for the trade.  By overpaying for JC, Hunter, and Bogi, we necessitated paring down the number of large contracts on the team.

[Phunkabilly]

Obviously the JC trade had a lot to do with the money.  But I really think the main reason he is gone is because we have a better fit waiting in the wings with JJ.  If you have a player Y who can be more impactful on your roster making a fraction of the money as player X, then it only makes sense to reallocate funds to address a bigger weakness on your roster.  And I know Diesel disagrees with me here, but I saw enough from JJ towards the end of the season that leads me to believe he'll have more of an impact on this team than JC.  No, he's not gonna be a 20 ppg type of guy, but he's going to fill up the box score doing everything else... passing, rebounding, blocking shots, getting deflections, etc.  Earlier in the season I saw too much nervousness/hesitation in his game to believe that he was ready for significant minutes.  You can attribute that to his inexperience, Nate's influence, or both.  But by the end of the season, he looked SOOO much more comfortable out there to me.  Yes, he was still making some rookie-like mistakes, but most of those mistakes were aggressive in nature, which I can live with.  Quin seems to like him too, and I really believe he's going to bring the best out of JJ.  I would be willing to bet we'll forget all about Collins halfway through next season.

[Packfill]

1 hour ago, AHF said:

In terms of value, I think the thing that speaks the loudest is the return on the trade (granting that if this trade was done to get us under the tax line then the return was constrained because you weren't going to take back a similar amount of salary).  But there was not team, for example, that had ~$18M in cap space and was willing to give a first round pick for JC or he would have been traded there. 

I agree with you that us being in the tax prior to the trade with contract extensions coming up was the driver for the trade.  By overpaying for JC, Hunter, and Bogi, we necessitated paring down the number of large contracts on the team.

Agreed - though in terms of the contract my view is that at the time the team entered into the contract it was not an overpay, and I think that would have been proven true in a trade scenario if they traded him a year ago.  Clearly they sold low given he was coming off of a career worst year and teams were well aware of the Hawks cap situation, so the Hawks' leverage in trade discussions was very low both due to the player and the teams financial situation.

EDIT:  I should add that I think there is a real chance Collins can improve this season and restore some of his previous trade value.  Injuries and playing time and team fit will obviously play heavily into that.

Edited June 29, 2023 by Packfill

[warcore]

2 hours ago, KB21 said:

I am also going to say that Hawks fans are giving up on DeAndre way too soon as well.  

I feel like it took me way too long to give up on him. He is what he is. 

[AHF]

1 hour ago, Packfill said:

Agreed - though in terms of the contract my view is that at the time the team entered into the contract it was not an overpay, and I think that would have been proven true in a trade scenario if they traded him a year ago.  Clearly they sold low given he was coming off of a career worst year and teams were well aware of the Hawks cap situation, so the Hawks' leverage in trade discussions was very low both due to the player and the teams financial situation.

EDIT:  I should add that I think there is a real chance Collins can improve this season and restore some of his previous trade value.  Injuries and playing time and team fit will obviously play heavily into that.

I agree that it is not only possible but actually likely that Collins is way better this season than last season.  He was already vastly improved at the end of last season compared to the first part where his injuries were worse.  Also agree the Hawks absolutely sold low and the fact that it was widely known that JC was being shopped and the reasonable assumption that teams viewed the Hawks to be in a weak negotiating position (using the Huerter deal for reference) absolutely did not help.

As for his original contract, I maintain the belief that it was really dumb to treat a RFA the way we did.  The whole system is set up to allow teams to get discounts on RFAs because fewer teams will bid on them.  We completely needlessly gave ourselves the worst possible situation:  (1) we didn't try to get a discount by offering him less than he would get as an UFA and (2) we allowed him to keep our best offer in his pocket while he shopped himself around the league trying to get more.  When you let a player go meet with other teams and shop themselves, you take the risk that they might get a higher offer elsewhere that you then have to match if you want to keep them. The upside to letting the player shop themselves is that you should be offering them only a discount offer (say $18M/year instead of $25M/year) and then you match whatever they get from another team which in this case would have been much less than $125M.  (Any other team could only offer 4 years so it would have been 4 years, $100M instead of 5 years, $125M even if another team was willing to pay that much per year.)  

RFA is deliberately designed to reduce the salaries of those players compared to UFA and that is exactly how it works in practice 99% of the time.  We have not done that with a RFA since Jeff Teague.

[KB21]

1 hour ago, warcore said:

I feel like it took me way too long to give up on him. He is what he is. 

No, he's not.  He is a player who hasn't had any quality coaching in his career to maximize what he has.  

[Gray Mule]

Jazz get a good player.  He will shine for them if he can stay healthy and elgible.  He's not an old man.  He can still grow and I hope he does.  I'm also happy that he's out west where we will not be watching him all the time.  Most of us here on the Squawk will, however, check on him from time to time.

Jazz outbid all the other NBA teams that wanted him.  The better he does with them the sadder the other teams that missed out will be!  I hope we get to grin a lot about this!!

[Watchman]

2 hours ago, KB21 said:

No, he's not.  He is a player who hasn't had any quality coaching in his career to maximize what he has.  

The same could be said for anyone on our roster, or those who were thrown on the garbage heap for nothing.

[Watchman]

On 6/28/2023 at 9:03 AM, JeffS17 said:

FYI I know you're a bit late to these threads since JC got traded, but our word of the week is "histrionics" 

I would say he made a reasonable assessment, no histrionics included.

[Watchman]

On 6/27/2023 at 1:12 PM, AHF said:

As does health and role.  All of those were factors.

I think JC is much closer to a 20/10 player if he is your primarily role man and your team's best rebounder instead of being a relative afterthought in both areas.

Hard to do much when you are constrained to play on the corner 3 point line.  You're not in position to rebound, and you're not in position to score in the low post.

[AHF]

14 minutes ago, Watchman said:

Hard to do much when you are constrained to play on the corner 3 point line.  You're not in position to rebound, and you're not in position to score in the low post.

To me his role primarily affected his offensive rebounding and scoring numbers.  Being on the court with CC meant his defensive rebounding numbers also took a hit from fewer opportunities.  His finger ruined his jumper which was his primary means of scoring when CC was on the floor.  A combination of health and role due to system and teammates.

But I also think he is unlikely to ever be featured again to the degree he was when he was 20 ppg or play with a worse rebounder than he did when he was a 10+ rpg which makes the odds of returning to those numbers just generally lower even if his role and health are greatly improved.

[bleachkit]

3 hours ago, KB21 said:

No, he's not.  He is a player who hasn't had any quality coaching in his career to maximize what he has.  

I don't buy that, sorry.

[Diesel]

7 hours ago, KB21 said:

disagree with him relative to Jalen though.  Long term, Jalen simply has more natural playmaking ability and defensive versatility.  He’s a better passer, better off the dribble, and while he has work to do and improvements to make, he has the ability to guard 2-4.  

He still has to be able to play that game as a starter.  Size does mean something.  We may find that he's better suited as a 3 in our positionless bball.. you are what you can defend. 

[Diesel]

7 hours ago, Phunkabilly said:

Obviously the JC trade had a lot to do with the money.  But I really think the main reason he is gone is because we have a better fit waiting in the wings with JJ.  If you have a player Y who can be more impactful on your roster making a fraction of the money as player X, then it only makes sense to reallocate funds to address a bigger weakness on your roster.  And I know Diesel disagrees with me here, but I saw enough from JJ towards the end of the season that leads me to believe he'll have more of an impact on this team than JC.  No, he's not gonna be a 20 ppg type of guy, but he's going to fill up the box score doing everything else... passing, rebounding, blocking shots, getting deflections, etc.  Earlier in the season I saw too much nervousness/hesitation in his game to believe that he was ready for significant minutes.  You can attribute that to his inexperience, Nate's influence, or both.  But by the end of the season, he looked SOOO much more comfortable out there to me.  Yes, he was still making some rookie-like mistakes, but most of those mistakes were aggressive in nature, which I can live with.  Quin seems to like him too, and I really believe he's going to bring the best out of JJ.  I would be willing to bet we'll forget all about Collins halfway through next season.

No this was strictly a salary dump.  Before it's all said and done, you may see DHunter playing the 4... because JJ doesn't have the size to defend.

 

[Diesel]

4 hours ago, KB21 said:

No, he's not.  He is a player who hasn't had any quality coaching in his career to maximize what he has.  

Maybe.. or maybe the effort is just not there.   The places where Dre fail is effort.   Rebounding.  Passing.  He just does 3 and D and that's it.  He amazes himself when he figures out that he can dribble to the paint.   As far as coaching, he spent last summer with Melo.  Helped some but he still fell back to his old lazy play. 

[Peoriabird]

19 minutes ago, Diesel said:

 Before it's all said and done, you may see DHunter playing the 4...

 

Here we go again

[Peoriabird]

6 minutes ago, Diesel said:

  Helped some but he still fell back to his old lazy play. 

Tatum would disagree with you.

[Diesel]

10 minutes ago, Peoriabird said:

Tatum would disagree with you.

Brown wouldn't.

[Peoriabird]

44 minutes ago, Diesel said:

Brown wouldn't.

He was checking both of them?  I think that was Murray, Bogie and Capela

[kg01]

Yall still doing this?