The Atlanta Hawks are looking less likely to keep John Collins
The Atlanta Hawks were potentially looking good to keep John Collins after the extended playoff run this season. When Collins was aggressive on the court, the Hawks were really hard to stop. The problem was that Collins had too many Jekyll and Hyde moments this season.
At his best, Collins is a max player but the problem is that he is not at his best often enough for the Hawks to offer him the money that other teams might. According to Shams of the Athletic, there are no less than four teams who are showing genuine interest in Collins.
These four teams are the Dallas Mavericks, the Minnesota Timberwolves, the San Antonio Spurs, and the Miami Heat. Each of these teams has various opportunities that they can offer Collins to try and entice him to come to their franchise.
Who is the Atlanta Hawks’ best partner for and John Collins deal?
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The Dallas Mavericks appear to have the cap space to sign Collins and they are already a playoff team. However, they need to re-sign Tim Hardaway. This means that they don’t have huge amounts of cap space available unless they trade Kristaps Porzingis.
If the Timberwolves are in fact interested in Collins, they will need to move one or more players in order to fit Collins’ future salary, which is likely to close to the max. This could be good for the Hawks if they could come to a sign-and-trade agreement with the Timberwolves.
The Heat have some flexibility in order to sign Collins. They have two players who have team options which the Heat decide not to exercise. This will automatically create the space required for Collins’ salary and he will get to play with Bam Adebayo and Jimmy Butler.
The Spurs have probably the largest cap space of any team with only $59.0 million of committed salary. They will need to re-sign DeMar DeRozan if they can, but they will still have the room to sign Collins and they have the drawcard in Gregg Popovich as the coach.
Next. 5 trade options to replace John Collins. dark
So, the best option for the Hawks, if they cannot re-sign Collins, would be to make a trade with the Timberwolves. They would at least get something back for the four-year man out of Wake Forest.