Just one look.
John Collins isn’t ready to make comparisons to some of the great point guard-power forward combinations in NBA history. However, there is chemistry building between Trae Young and Collins. Take a play early in a Las Vegas Summer League game between the Hawks and Knicks as an example.
Young faced a double-team from the Knicks in a pick-and-roll with Collins. The rookie point guard, the No. 5 overall pick in the draft, found Collins with a no-look pass for an easy basket.
“It was sort of a feeling,” said Collins, entering his second season after he was the No. 19 overall pick last year. “I saw him look up and look away and I already knew the pass was coming. That’s part of the chemistry.”
The basket accounted for two of Collins’ game-high 30 points in a 91-89 loss to the Knicks in the opening preliminary round game on Saturday on the campus of the University of Nevada-Las Vegas. Collins was 12 of 22 from the field, including 4 of 7 from 3-point range. He scored 15 fourth-quarter points on six field goals – most of them dunks. His first field goal was a straight-on 3-pointer for the Hawks’ first points of the game.
Collins is ever-improving his game. That’s the plan.
“Expanding my game away from the rim – driving, passing, kicking, making 3’s and then on the defensive end being able to switch and guard as well,” Collins said. “That’s the way the NBA is moving and a guy my size has to do everything to be able to survive.”
Collins played two of the three games in the recently completed Utah Jazz Summer League. He combined for 28 points on 11 of 21 shooting. Now, in the first game of the Las Vegas Summer League, he bettered the point total.
Should Collins keep playing? Is there anything left for him to prove?
“He’s got to score 40 tomorrow,” Hawks assistant and summer league coach Chris Jent jokingly said after the game as a threshold for Collins to find a spot on the end of the bench.
In all seriousness, summer league is a chance to apply an offseason of work. However, there are indications for worrisome fans that Collins won’t be a summer league workhorse in Las Vegas.
“I don’t think the summer (league) is about proving,” Jent said. “You work hard, he worked all June, and you try to apply what you worked on to gain some confidence. We will reel him back after he played in Utah.”
But there is chemistry to be built. There is groundwork to be laid for the future. Collins and Young are two key pieces for the rebuilding Hawks.
“I was in his situation literally a year ago,” Collins said of Young. “I know what he’s going through so it’s easier for me to connect and build some chemistry.”
