Trading John Collins would be a very bad idea for the Utah Jazz, especially for Kyle Kuzma.
The Utah Jazz landing John Collins for Rudy Gay and a 2nd round pick is the steal of the offseason. Collins is expected to return to form in 2023-2024 and should be able to help lead the Jazz back to the playoffs and beyond. His pairing with Walker Kessler and Lauri Markkanen is among the most hyped-up trios heading into the season. There are big expectations developing in Salt Lake City.
So it makes zero sense to not only trade Collins but to trade him for an older player who is, historically, worse than he is, and that player is Kyle Kuzma. Well, according to Bleacher Report’s Zach Buckley, Kuzma is apparently an upgrade, but we’re not sure why.
By any metric you want to measure by, Collins is better than Kuzma. Box Plus-Minus, True Shooting, standard statistics, the now-dead RAPTOR stats. Pick whatever metric you want, Collins has been, and will likely be better than Kuzma.
We’ve seen Collins play at high levels and had a down year in 2022-2023 due to a thumb injury. Kuzma, who had a career year in Washington as one of the team’s primary scorers, was anything but a force to be reckoned with. Despite having three players who averaged 20 points all year, Kuzma’s Wizards had a losing record.
Part of that is due to Kuzma. Firstly, he’s a bad rebounder. We’re not talking average but for a 6’10 forward, he’s averaged just 6.4 rebounds in his career. Collins is at 8.0 rebounds for his career, and unlike Kuzma, did have 10+ over the course of one season.
Collins is also better at shooting the ball when he’s healthy. Just look a their career True Shooting scores; Collins has a .626, while Kuzma had a .545. Yes, in the ’22-’23 season, Kuzma out-played Collins, but Collins was injured with a crippling hand injury that derailed his season.
Yet, despite the obvious upgrades on offense with a healthy Collins as opposed to Kuzma, it’s Buckley’s adamant decree that Kuzma is better on defense.
"They were, perhaps, similarly regarded in the past, but while Collins is trending down, Kuzma’s stock is rising. The 28-year-old just posted personal bests of 21.2 points and 3.7 assists, and his defense has never been better."
Yet, we’re not sure what makes him think that Kuzma is “better” than Collins defensively. The stats don’t lie, we know offensively that Collins is the better player, but we also know that he’s a better defensive player.
Kuzma posted a defensive box plus-minus (DBPM) of -1.5, while Collins posted a DBPM of +0.2.
And this despite the fact that the Wizards defense (#17 in points allowed), was better than Collin’s previous team, the Atlanta Hawks (#25). So Collins played better individual defense on a bad defensive team than Kuzma did on a mediocre defensive team.
Yet, Kuzma is the upgrade?
Apparently so, as Buckley is suggesting the Jazz give up a first-rounder to get Kuzma. Not only tht, the whole premise of the article is about getting out of bad contracts, but Collins is a better deal than Kuzma.
Collins’ deal is only for three seasons, with the third being a player option, and costing between $25-26 million per year. Kuzma’s deal is four years long and will cost the team just as much. Sure, Kuzma’s deal gets about three million dollars cheaper in what would be Collins’ final year, but by then, you could use Collins as an expiring contract if he doesn’t rebound back to his old form.
Kuzma, who is likely to slide back to his usual level of production, will be an albatross for longer than Collins. So if Kuzma were to fail to get better or stay at his current level, which is very likely, then his deal then become one of the worst in the NBA.