Predictions: Hawks not expected to contend, but …

5. John Collins will make the All-Star Game

After working on his game during the 2018 Summer League, the fruits of John Collins‘ labor were ripe in 2018-19.

Building off of that productive offseason and an impressive rookie campaign that went unnoticed thanks to the Donovan Mitchell/Ben Simmons Rookie of the Year feud, Collins became the full-time starter at power forward and the bump in minutes and attempts resulted in a 19.5 point, 9.8 rebound season.

Now, before you say, “Of course his numbers went up. He got more minutes and touches,” Collins’ breakout season wasn’t a consequence of increased volume. When you extrapolate his stats to per 100 possessions, his points went from 21.3 in 2017-18 to 30.0 last year, so this wasn’t a case of shameless stat-padding.

Atlanta’s net rating going from minus-8.9 to minus-2.3 when Collins was on the floor also backs this up.

On offense, Collins primarily served as a solid rim-roller (64 percent of his shot attempts came after zero dribbles) who punctuated many of Trae Young‘s passes with a layup, 3-pointer or an authoritative dunk (1.25 points per possession as the roll man in 2018-19, placing him in the 79th percentile).

But he also excelled in post isolations (1.01 PPP) and transition scoring (1.25 PPP), making him more than a one-dimensional slasher.

He still needs to improve his defense — ESPN’s Real Plus/Minus (RPM) metric ranked him as one of the worst defensive power forwards last year.

However, his hustle stats and his tracking stats are more encouraging — and his spot-up game (0.97 PPP, 34.3 percent on wide-open 3s), but if Collins refines those areas of his game and continues to build chemistry with Young, he can make the All-Star team in an East that’s short on frontcourt stars.