John Collins – Atlanta Hawks

After a great, breakout season last year, John Collins has continued to prove he is one of the better, younger players in the entire league, especially given all the talent on this Hawks roster this year. His production and numbers have slightly declined this year due to there being more scoring options on the Hawks, but overall, Collins is a great power-forward. 

So far through 18 games, Collins is averaging 16.7 points, 7.7 rebounds, 1.2 blocks and is shooting 53.6% from the floor, 41.4% from three-point range. With Minnesota’s need for a legit secondary option next to Karl-Anthony Towns, John Collins checks off all of the boxes for Minnesota. 

With the Timberwolves being a young and athletic team, Collins not only fits this mold, but he brings a new dynamic to this team. Towns would not have all the attention solely on him due to Collins, Russell and Beasley all being scoring threats and they would finally have two legit low-post threats they can rely on. 

Bringing in John Collins solves a lot of the T-Wolves’ problems on the offensive end of the court and also gives them a high-level rebounder as well. Minnesota currently ranks middle-of-the-pack in the NBA in rebounds per game, and while a lot of this has to deal with KAT being out, Collins could join this team and immediately become their best rebounder.

Being able to trade for John Collins also signifies that he will be in Minnesota for a long-time to come. Collins is in the final year of his rookie contract and as a result, the Timberwolves would not make a trade for him unless they received a long-term commitment.

After declining a $90M contract extension this past offseason, Collins’ future in Atlanta is very much up-in-the-air and if they decide not to trade him at the trade deadline this season, the Timberwolves could be very much in play to acquire John Collins via a sign-and-trade next offseason.