As a diehard Nets fan growing up, some of my favorite memories as a child are watching the Nets of the 2000s. With Jason Kidd running the show those teams were incredibly exciting and while Kidd, Kenyon Martin, Richard Jefferson and Vince Carter were the stars of those teams at various points, there was another player who was a constant on those perennial playoff squads: Jason Collins.
Collins played a big role in the Nets reaching the NBA Finals in 2001 serving as the backup center to Todd MacCulloch, before becoming a starter the next season. He remained entrenched in the Nets’ starting lineup for the next five and a half seasons before being traded in 2008 to the Memphis Grizzlies for Stromile Swift.
During his five and a half years as a starter, no player on the Nets was more vilified or mocked by the fans than Collins. He never averaged more than six points or six rebounds in a season, and had no tangible talents to the casual observer. He couldn’t shoot, and when he did, almost everyone in the building cringed. He had no post game, and was not a threat to score on the block. He didn’t rebound as well as one would expect for a seven-foot, 255-pound man. Yet Collins, with his meager stats, somehow outlasted guys like MacCulloch, Dikembe Mutombo, Marc Jackson, Elden Campbell and Jamaal Magloire. How did he do it?
Collins did it by doing almost everything that doesn’t show up in the box score or to the casual fan. He set hard screens to free up the Nets’ scorers. He boxed out his man. He drew charges. And most of all, he played excellent defense – and did exactly what was asked of him. Over the course of an 82-game season those things can’t really be seen. Maybe one night Collins would slow Tim Duncan or Shaq down, but it would be one game and nobody would think to give Collins the credit for the effort. Fans focus on the star players who scored the most points, and that was never Collins. While the fans were willing to criticize Collins at any time, his teammates adored him. They knew his value to the team even if the fans didn’t. However, in the playoffs, when every play is analyzed with much more scrutiny than in the regular season, people began to appreciate Collins for what he was: an excellent defender and one of the smartest players in the NBA.
Each year during the Nets’ playoff runs, they always seemed to go against a dominant big man. They played the Heat multiple times, and Collins was the man to guard Shaq. In the 2003 NBA Finals they played the Spurs and he guarded Duncan. The series I will always remember that epitomized Collins was in 2007 when the Nets were the six seed and played the third-seeded Raptors in the first round.
Collins was charged with guarding Chris Bosh in that series and he effectively neutralized the Raptors’ budding superstar. He studied Bosh’s tendencies, forced him into parts of the floor he didn’t want to be in, and played Bosh right into the hands of his help defense. It was a masterful effort on his part as he held Bosh to 17.5 points on 39.6 percent shooting for the series down from 22 points on 49.6 shooting in the regular season. His defense on Bosh was one of the key reasons the Nets were able to win the series four games to two.
Now, Jason is back in the news. This time though he is not wearing a Nets uniform, but playing for the Hawks, and his job this season is to bother Dwight Howard as much as possible. Howard is the premier center in basketball, but Jason Collins, the man with career averages of four points and four rebounds, is shutting down the best center in the NBA.
He is clearly frustrating Howard, and the charge he drew at the end of the game yesterday was a big play for the Hawks. Nobody expected the Hawks to be ahead in this series three to one at this point. With the way the Hawks played at the end of the regular season, concerns and warning flags were everywhere for this team. However, thanks in part to the most thankless man in the NBA, a player nobody expected to make an impact, the Hawks are on the verge of moving to the second round of the playoffs, and for that Jason Collins deserves some love.
Who do you think is the most thankless man in the NBA?
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