Portland Trail Blazers: Complete 2017 offseason grades
Drafting Zach Collins
When the Portland Trail Blazers traded the 15th and 20th pick of the 2017 NBA Draft to the Sacramento Kings for the 10th overall pick, I was ecstatic. When they drafted Zach Collins with that pick, I admit that I was…a lot less ecstatic.
Nevertheless, I continued to keep an open mind, knowing full well that there was a lot to like about Collins’ skill-set and that he was still relatively unproven compared to the rest of his peers.
Then he went into the 2017 Las Vegas Summer League, and everything went to s**t.
Needless to say, but Collins underperformed a great deal this summer in Vegas. He had what he admitted to be a “terrible” debut, which he followed up with another poor performance before going down with an injury in the team’s last game of the preliminary round.
When his team began to win games with him on the bench, it became clear that Collins was unlikely to be an immediate contributor this season. For a team that may end up being at the bottom of the playoff tree once again this year, this wasn’t exactly the best revelation.
ZACH COLLINS. D. Good kid. Great skill-set. Still has a long way to go in terms of being NBA-ready. An unnecessary project on a playoff-level team.. C. Portland Trail Blazers
The Portland Trail Blazers don’t need “potential” right now — they NEED production. Collins has a skill-set that could prove useful later down the road, but as of right now, he’s dead weight taking up a roster spot on a team that needs all the help it can get in a tough Western Conference.