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I had been thinking of writing this column for about a week, but after seeing Collins foul Delonte West to setup a three point play with the Nets up 4 with 55 seconds to go it became apparent it needs to be said: Jason Collins is awful.
Consider this actual conversation with my friend (we'll call him John) after 7 games in the season.
Me: i think collins may only have a total of 1 field goal this season
John:is that an exageration or close to fact
Me: close to fact
John :that's funny
Me: he went about 4 games before he made his first
John :how is that possible though even if you dont' look for your offense being 7 feet, you have to accidently make a shot
Me: nope, not collins
John: he is a very good help defender, and sets good screens
Me:uh... yeah, something like that...
This conversation pretty much sums it up for Collins. You’d think being 7 foot he accidentally help out the offense, but nope he averages exactly 0.5 points a game. You’d think he would grab at least like 7-8 rebounds a game, haha try 2.2. So surely he must block some shots? Nope, 0.08 blocks per game.
So why does he play? Mainly because people, specifically his coach, thinks he sets good screens and plays good defense. Now I’ll give him this, despite not blocking any shots, he does provide pretty decent defense against a big man with size, say an Eddy Curry, Shaq or Dwight Howard. However if you put him against a guy like Bargnani or Stoudemire, in other words a quicker big man he’s got little to no chance. As for setting good screens though… it’s a bloody screen! That’s not a talent! If you combine the fact that he’s not all-league defensive, and his offense is epically bad, he should not play, especially not 18-20 minutes a night.
He makes Ben Wallace look like an offensive dynamo.
Admittedly like any stat John Hollingers PER (player efficiency rating) isn’t perfect, but I think it’s useful. So, consider this for a second, Jason Collins had a league low 3.02 PER last season. The runner up had a PER 2 points higher at 5.33. As bad as last season’s efficiency rating was his PER this season is NEGATIVE. That’s right, -2.66, the worst PER in the League. According to that, the Nets might actually be better on offense with no center on the floor then Collins.
If you can’t find a way to contribute at least a little bit offensively with Jason Kidd as your teammate, you know you’re garbage. With Sean Williams emerging to average 8.7 points, 4.3 boards and 2.1 blocks per game in the same 19 points a game and even Josh Boone providing mostly solid D and a per of 3 in VERY limited time, it’s time for Collins to take a seat.
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