John Collins...Our Third Star

[ItsGoTime]

I have a feeling Collins is going to regret turning down that extension. He is a good player with a high floor but to me his extension (4/90) is higher than he should be slotted. I would put him more in the 18-20 type range based on the fact that he's young and has an inside/outside game. He is definitely a high floor player but max money would be silly and even 22.5/yr seems too high to me.

For me it really depends on the surrounding plan. 

Are we trading KP somewhere? 

• If so, what are the returning pieces? Are we getting a higher end defender at C?
  

• If not, is he gonna be closer to the Capella defender that he could be next year? If so, I’m all for paying him as much as is needed to get Atl to not match and SnT him here.
  

Does JRich and/or THJ stay? 

• If the answer to either of those is yes, the path is pretty much unheard of to get him, but still doable if ATL really doesn’t want him, or really wants our trade package. (Kleber and opted in JRich?)
  
• If no, this is probably the best route to go as far as best assets. 
  

These would be the main questions in my mind. Not keeping these players gives a pretty clear path to getting him. I would love to end up trading KP and JB for Turner and Brogdon (3 team or not), then SnT for Collins with a Kleber based package, give the rMLE to Batum, min to Melli and Bradley and end up with:

MB/Bradley/TT
Luka/Green/Burke
DFS/Batum/Bey
Collins/Powell/Melli
Turner/WCS/Boban

That is a team that secures first round HCA. All 5 starters can hit a 3. Secondary ball handlers . No egos to speak of. Room to grow (youth) as well as spots to possibly tweak on the bench depending on how they play.