Boston Celtics: Potential John Collins trade pieces Cs can offer
The biggest shot the Boston Celtics, or seemingly any other team could take, at the trade deadline is hunting for a John Collins trade. Collins’ numbers are down across the board in 2022-23, and he hasn’t seen eye to eye with franchise cornerstone, for now at the very least, Trae Young.
The price for the explosively athletic six-foot-nine nightly double-double threat is dropping by the minute as he continues to put up pedestrian stats on a fairly hefty contract by modern NBA salary standards.
If Boston gets involved with the Hawks for Collins, MassLive’s Brian Robb revealed the potential pieces the Celtics front office can dangle in negotiations while answering a question during his latest Celtics mailbag:
"“The Pritchard/Grant/Gallinari/filler package is probably something the Hawks wouldn’t go for and would be tough to pull off with the number of players involved (Atlanta would need to trade a lot of other guys to open up roster spots) so I don’t see them going for something like that. A White for Collins trade is a fun debate but that feels like the kind of deal that both sides would say no to for different reasons.”"
The Boston Celtics are not a trade fit for John Collins
As Brian Robb points out in that same Celtics mailbag answer, there is really not much of a fit for John Collins in Boston. There’s a chance the Cs would end up paying nearly $24 million for a guy who wouldn’t be on the floor in the closing moments of a postseason game.
Robert Williams III and Al Horford would cover those moments, or the team would opt to have an extra playmaker on the floor like Malcolm Brogdon. Collins would be a luxury, but it’d cost the team all of their depth or one of the team’s most productive playmakers in Derrick White.
If Collins ends up anywhere, it could be a dark horse Western Conference team like the Utah Jazz, Phoenix Suns, or Portland Trail Blazers that swoops in and lands him. All those teams would have more to offer in the short-term for Atlanta.