John Collins and Trae Young Crack ESPN’s 25 Under 25 List

Accessing Trae Young and John Collins’ placement on ESPN’s 25 Under 25 list.

Two Atlanta Hawks appeared on ESPN’s annual 25 Under 25 list, which ranks the best young talent in the league. John Collins and Trae Young were included, but Hawks fans are still upset with the list.

The placement is a bit concerning, with John Collins in particular being ranked too low. He barely made the list at #24, lower than his appearance last year. Despite playing like a true All-Star since returning from suspension, he dropped five spots from last year’s list.

His averages are up across the board, and is one of five NBA players to average 20 point and 10 rebounds. The one other player on the Under 25 list to do that (Karl-Anthony Towns) ranked 19 spots higher than Collins.

It’s obvious that JC just isn’t getting the respect he deserve, although the voters could have took his 25 game suspension into consideration. Still, some of the players above Collins are just flat out not better than the Wake Forest product. In particular, Nuggets rookie Michael Porter Jr ranked directly above Collins at 23, and has averaged just a tick over 14 minutes per game this season, and has one career start.

Trae Young was snubbed from that list a year ago, which was questionable but understandable given his rough start to the season. The 21-year-old All-Star came in at #8 in this year’s ranking, which is a bad look on paper, but when you dig into the players above him, there’s just so much talent to argue too much.

There’s not much a case to put Ice Trae in the top five, but leap-frogging Ja Morant and Donovan Mitchell to move to six is reasonable. Trae’s offensive numbers are better than theirs, but has the worst defensive output and team record of those two. On paper I do think Trae is a better player, but taking everything into consideration, Young’s ranking seemed about right.

As for other members of the incredibly young Atlanta Hawks, they never really had a chance with Collins coming in at 24. Cam Reddish, Kevin Huerter and De’Andre Hunter are all good, young players but aren’t nearly on the same level of John Collins who barely made the list.

At just 20 and rapidly improving, Reddish probably has the best chance of those three to make a future list.

As a whole I think the entire list is a miss for ESPN, and the two Atlanta Hawks were just caught in the cross-fire. The rankings are all over the place, and John Collins at #24 wasn’t even the biggest travesty there.

Collins is 22 and Young is just 21, giving each the chance to move up higher in the list in the next few seasons.