Boston Celtics: 4 players worth trading for John Collins
According to Tim Daniels of Bleacher Report, the Atlanta Hawks are “willing to listen to offers” on star big man, and Boston Celtics fan-favorite trade target, John Collins.
The Hawks have a cluster of big men, with Collins, Clint Capela, and Onyeka Okongwu getting the bulk of the minutes. Capela in general has been a revelation for Atlanta, leading the league in total rebounds per game, as well as offensive rebound percentage.
Collins has voiced plenty of discontent with his situation within the rotation, especially offensively. According to Sam Amick and Chris Kirschner from The Athletic, Collins feels he is not being utilized nearly enough in this year’s offense compared to last.
With Collins’ skillset, he would fit in on nearly any team.
He is a long forward, an excellent rim runner, a top tier roll man, falling into the 82nd percentile last year with 1.32 points per possession. But the most important aspect of his game is his long-range shooting.
These past two seasons he has shot over 40 percent from the arc on over 3 1/2 attempts per game.
The Boston Celtics could certainly use for a guy like John Collins
Collins’ ability to space the floor is extremely vital to any team’s offense in today’s game, allowing them to pull interior defenders to give their stars more room to work in the paint.
While he does struggle in some aspects defensively, in the right situation he could become a great two-way player, and that situation could be while serving as the starting power forward for the Boston Celtics.
Of course, acquiring such a talent will cost a pretty penny in return, and some at HH have already started to concoct packages that could be proposed to land the 23-year-old.
Though we’re not here to compose specific deals the Cs could shoot over to Atlanta in hopes of bringing Collins to the Cs, today we dive into listing four players the Cs could afford to give up via trade for the stud big man
Boston Celtics player No. 1) Aaron Nesmith
The Boston Celtics selected Aaron Nesmith with the 14th pick in the 2020 NBA draft and, at the time, most thought it was possibly the steal of the draft. Sadly, he has not yet proven to be a meaningful rotation player.
Nesmith was a staggering 52 percent deep ball shooter in his sophomore season at Vanderbilt on over eight attempts per game. These numbers alone helped him become a lottery pick.
So far, however, those numbers have not translated, and in a limited playing time, he is only shooting 31 percent from deep.
Nesmith Clearly has a long way to go in the league, and with the way the roster is constructed, it’s not clear if he will be a key cog in the team’s championship-aspiring machine. However, that is not to say he couldn’t be a great player on another team with the right amount of minutes and an offense more geared to get him involved outside of garbage time.
The rookie is a very hard worker, has the drive to be a great player, and any team that would give him the time of day would see that.
"“Just adjusting to the game, different level of competition, different speed, being tossed in pretty fast and having to learn pretty fast, the head spins every now and then, But it’s just how quickly and how well you can slow the game down and help your teammates win games and make winning plays.”"
Nesmith also believes that conditioning is key to success in the league. The wing is 6-5, 215-pounds with very low body fat.
On the subject, he added:
"“Strength is very much underrated in basketball, it’s such a physical game. So, the stronger you can be, the easier it is…”"
A team like the Atlanta Hawks could use a guy like Nesmith.
Give him roughly 15-25 minutes per game, and have him be a Duncan Robinson type player — always moving off-ball, getting as many catch-and-shoot opportunities as possible — because, as of now, his shot creation skills are practically non-existent.
Currently, Nesmith only shoots a disappointing 30.4 percent on catch-and-shoot jumpers, but if he was once a player hitting 3s at the insane rate he did in college, the skill is definitely there, he just needs to work on confidence to get it back.
And the only way to boost confidence is to boost reps, which, as of right now, isn’t happening in Boston.