The Utah Jazz got an upgrade with John Collins, that's for sure. When you trade Rudy Gay and a second-round pick and you get back John Collins, that's an upgrade, and he's played significantly better than Gay would've. That's not in dispute. The problem is, that even though Collins has out-played the man he "replaced" in the rotation, doesn't mean Collins is living up to his contract.
Collins' contract is a massive one for a guy who's not really making the offense pop and is oftentimes falling behind on defensive rotations. If you told us that Collins would play for the Jazz, and put up the stats he's putting up while making about $5 million per season and all off the bench; we'd be excited.
However, for $25 million per year? And with as bad as he's been on defense? Yeah, it's no wonder there are rumors that the Jazz have put Collins on the trade block.
Andy Larsen of the Salt Lake Tribune is reporting that the Jazz is frustrated with Collins' lack of integration into the system and that his advanced metrics highlight a very average player who doesn't make an impact on the team in any positive way. And honestly, we get it.
Collins came in as a project, and many of us believed that the team would do to him what they did with Lauri Markkanen; make him into a start player and unlock the potential we've seen for years go wasted. That wasn't what happened. Instead, Collins' lack of cohesion on the team has allowed the Jazz to fall apart at times on both offense and defense, exposing key players like Walker Kessler in the process.
It's no wonder that the Jazz's defense looked so much better with Kelly Olynyk in the starting lineup recently, as he actually understands the team's game plans. It feels almost silly now to blow the whole thing up if we know the players on the team who aren't helping. If the Jazz trade off a couple of bad apples, maybe the team can salvage the rest of the season without having to actually blow up the roster.