The Atlanta Hawks’ John Collins could have chosen any playoff game to watch alongside an ESPN reporter on the first day of the NBA postseason, but he selected the Denver Nuggets-Utah Jazz because of his relationship with Donovan Mitchell.
“We went through pre-draft camp together,” Collins explains. “We’re pretty good friends – as good friends as you can be when you’re on opposing teams.”
Mitchell caught Collins’ eye back in the spring of 2017 because, like him, Mitchell was not intimidated by higher-ranking prospects. Yet their fear – or creativity – doubted and from that a mutual respect was born. Collins has been texting and submitting with Mitchell all season, including during the Jazz star’s stunt in the bubble.
Mitchell averaged a career- and franchise playoff-high 57 points on the Nuggets on Monday, hitting six 3s and going a perfect 13-for-13 from the line. He also fired seven assists and grabbed more rebounds than his 7-foot teammate Rudy Gobert. For large parts of the game, Mitchell dominated the game.
“His skills are the same,” Collins reports. “There’s just more polish to his game. You can see the confidence. … He loves that jab-step jumper in the lane and those weird floaters he sets up. point is where he says, ‘I can get these shots whenever I want.’ “
Mitchell did his level best in Game 1 to help fill the void left by goalkeeper Mike Conley, who left the bubble to be with his wife and newborn son. But Mitchell was outdated in the streak by another young star, Jamal Murray, who submitted 36 points, six tries, nine rebounds and seven assists in a signing moment for the 23-year-old Nuggets cornerstone.
The playoffs have a way of creating sensations overnight, young players who just never got the chance to take the stage with the lights shining brightly on them. John Collins would not know it; with his Hawks team failing to meet the criteria for Orlando, Florida, all he can do is show up.
So life is outside the bubble.
“Sure, I’m pissed we’m not in the bubble,” he admits. “I love basketball. But I played a big part in why our team was not in the bubble.
“I will not hold that against myself. It does us no good.”
Collins, who is not yet 23, had salivated the Hawks’ front door over his pairing with Atlanta star Trae Young. The young duo were electric when they came out and ran together, and their stable pick-and-roll diet often resulted in enormous slams from the bouncy Collins. Hopes were high, their young core would accelerate the rebuilding of the Hawks. But then, on Nov. 5, Collins tested positive for growth hormone release peptide-2 and was stopped for 25 games. Collins said he took a supplement that he did not realize contained the banned substance and profusely apologized to his team.
The Hawks went 4-21 in his absence.
“If there was anything I was complaining about, it was that,” Collins admits. “I understood what it meant for my team, for my career. I also understand that I had to move forward mentally.
“I have a very happy life. I want to be clear about it. But if you lose 25% of your salary because of [a suspension], then another 25% because of COVID-19, it puts some things in perspective. “
“So I’m turning this around [biggest] bless in disguise by learning from it, and building from it, and becoming a beautiful butterfly that can take flight, ”Collins adds.
The NBA is full of intriguing young talent like John Collins, but it was Trae Young who stole most of Atlanta’s highlights with his exceptional long-range reach. Meanwhile, Collins averaged 21.6 points and 10.1 boards for the season. A career .571 field goal percentage shooter, Collins shot 58.3% from the floor, 40.1% from the 3-point line and 80% from the free throw line.
“My game is efficiency,” Collins says. “Right when everything stopped, I felt like I’d caught my midseason groove. I had never succeeded before now and then. In my rookie year, Coach [Mike Budenholzer] was in charge, and he had friction with the front office and they calmed down. And I did not play as much as I hoped. My second year I was injured. And then this year, my third, I had the suspension.
“I wish we could have continued. But I use that feeling to lift heavier weights, take extra shots, run an extra mile. If I can be smart from the court, then I have to believe it’s up. ‘ the court is flourishing. “
Collins spent extra time in the weight room during the hiatus. His goal, he says, is to protect 2 to 5, and he concentrates on adding muscle so he can control the likes of Joel Embiid or Hassan Whiteside, if asked.
“I’m very skinny right now,” Collins says. “I’m about 227, and the team wants me to eat a little more, raise my protein numbers. The perfect weight for me is probably 230 to 235, so I can be scared of those big fellas. I’m not blessed with them. bulk, but I have some athletics that can create problems for them. “
He longs for the days when a trip to the exercise facility meant working out in the weight room, checking out the whole court and then spending time in the closet shooting the wine with the fellas. Due to strict management guidelines most of this is not possible at the moment. Still, Collins says, he and Young talk all the time about how they can elevate Atlanta into a playoff candidate.
“If we want to take the next step – me and Trae – we have to defend our defense,” Collins said. “We need some kind of chemistry like spark. Something needs to change at that end of the floor. We have an excellent young core, but we could probably use a few older vets who can give us a little mental pressure.
“We need to be more locked up, to be consistent in our standing, to be worse, stronger. And that brings me back to the weight room.”
Atlanta, like the rest of the teams not invited to Orlando, has tried to cut out some sort of offseason regime, but the National Basketball Players Association continues to push back on the proposals. At one point, a second bubble was planned in Chicago, but that is undercover. That also has for the moment the prospect of mini-camps in the market.
“It’s frustrating,” Collins says. “We’re trying to set things up. We think we’ll get ahead of it to try, and then it’s canceled. We’re asking if we can add more people so we can have a 3-on-3 or 4 -on- 4-game, but just getting an answer lasts forever. We get it over with, but then we hear, ‘No, you can not do it.’
“It’s stressful when everything stops like that. It’s always, ‘we’ll see what things look like next week,’ or, ‘we need to talk to the players’ association again.'”
“COVID has not caused any shortage of problems,” Collins explains. “One of them is the possibility that we could go nine months away. That’s too long. We’m not in the playoffs, summer competition has been canceled and training camp has been resumed. We need some help, but we are not really getting it.
“We are just innocent bystanders waiting to see what happens.”
Collins says he will continue to watch at some of the NBA bubble playoffs, but that he is ready to beat himself up and play the “what if” game. He looks forward, not backward.
“This year we were not ready,” he says. “Next year we will be.”
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