Despite my best efforts to hype the dude up at every opportunity, I don’t think people fully appreciate the rarity of what John Collins accomplished in his second year in the league. In case you don’t remember the exact statistic quantities, here they are:
19.5 PPG
9.8 RBG
56/35/73 shooting
62.7% true shooting
That seems pretty good right? However, even a learned NBA scholar might not realize how rare those numbers really are. Only nine players since the turn of the millennium have put up 18 points and 9 rebounds in their second year in the league.
I’m going to list those players so that, by the end of the list, you’ll have a fuller understanding of how much of a total studbeast John Collins is currently and how much of a complete beastmonster he will be going forward. Note that DTB doesn’t care about defense, so any of Collins’ alleged defensive shortcomings will be ignored by yours truly for the duration of this video description.
-Lauri Markkanen (2018-19 – 18.7 pts, 9.0 rebs)
Okay, so when I used basketball-reference to generate the list of second-year players who dropped 18/9, I totally forgot that the Finnisher would be on it. If you had asked me how many rebounds per game he averaged this year, I would have said seven, and I would have thrown in a comment about how he’s too skinny to get rebounds. I can get away with saying that because not a whole lot of Finns are going to find out about my shameful ignorance by watching this video and reading its description.
-Joel Embiid (2017-18 – 22.9 pts, 11.0 rebs)
This doesn’t really count because the early years of Embiid’s career were plagued by season-long injuries. If he had been totally healthy the entire time and not beset by a multitude of foot/knee/hip/leg/toe/leprosy problems, his second season would have actually been the 2010-11 season. Hanging around NBA teams and sitting on NBA benches while wearing NBA suits has a bigger impact on NBA basketball ability than most people realize. So, yeah, this doesn’t count. At all.
-Karl-Anthony Towns (2016-17 – 25.1 pts, 12.3 rebs)
KAT came into the league with a polished offensive arsenal and only improved going into his second year. Lately, his career has been derailed by players whose names rhyme with Timmy Cutler, Def League, and Dandrew Biggins (and let’s not even get started on his coaches), but we don’t care about that. We only care about the fact that KAT was putting up all-time-great numbers in his sophomore season. Just like John Collins.
-Anthony Davis (2013-14 – 20.8 pts, 10.0 rebs)
Any big who is the consensus number one pick should be averaging 20/10 by his second year, and that’s what AD did. As a funny side note, I bet you could take number two pick Michael Kidd-Gilchrist’s averages from his first three years, add them together, and still not get twenty points and ten rebounds. Nowhere is safe for Hornets fans.
-Blake Griffin (2011-12 – 20.7 pts, 10.9 rebs)
The Blake Griffin of today (a three-point shooting point-forward) would not recognize the Blake Griffin of his second season (an above-the-rim dunk machine), but either version is a player that any team would want (for the right price). This is a good place to mention that John Collins has combined forces with Trae Young to move Lob City to Atlanta.
-DeMarcus Cousins (2011-12 – 18.1 pts, 11.0 rebs)
Cousins started his career off as a low-efficiency statpadder on a bad team. He’s gotten better as his career went along and established himself as a legitimate All-Star, but in his second year he just wasn’t all that good. At the same point in their careers, John Collins is way better.
After Cousins, there’s a big chronological gap. Centers drafted in the late 00’s just couldn’t reach my arbitrary threshold (although Brook Lopez, Kevin Love, Dwight Howard, LaMarcus Aldridge, and Chris Bosh were close). To get another one averaging 8/9, you have to go all the way back to…
-Amar’e Stoudemire (2003-04 – 20.6 pts, 9.0 rebs)
Before he rediscovered himself/his religion by playing basketball in Israel, before he punched a fire extinguisher, before he killed Andrew Bogut, before all those things, Amar’e Stoudemire averaged 20/9 for a fledgling Suns team in its first year of D’Antoniball. Now him and Nash are in heaven together. I want to go to heaven too.
-Elton Brand (2000-01 – 20.1 pts, 10.1 rebs)
Brand is “Mr. 20/10” to me. He excelled on some crummy Bulls/Clippers teams; it wasn’t until his seventh year in the league that he played on a winning team, and even his Philly teams were just mediocre. Still, he’s a multiple-time All-Star!
As you can see, John Collins is in some good company. And nobody even realizes it. Until now. I hope Collins or his agent pays me some good money to have written this glowing appraisal of Collins’ talents. I take personal checks, Venmo, PayPal, Patreon donations, or straight up cash delivered to my residence.