The first-year Wolverines coach is still working behind the scenes to fill out his staff and he made a vow when he was hired that he would grow the recruiting department. Besides the hire of former Michigan director of player personnel Sean Magee (who was previously with the Chicago Bears) as the general manager, there was apparently no movement on that front.
But on Wednesday, the department grew by two.
Michigan brought back a familiar name in former team legacy linebacker Jack Dunaway, who played in the earlier part of the Jim Harbaugh tenure, as an assistant director of recruiting. But he also added Georgia player personnel assistant John Collins to the fold, also as an assistant director of recruiting.
The latter was first reported by 247Sports’ Matt Zenitz.
Michigan is hiring Georgia’s John Collins as assistant director of recruiting, a source tells @247sports.
These two additions will bolster the department and help Michigan football modernize a bit in terms of recruiting. Though their duties will likely remain relatively unknown, it’s progress for Moore to work towards his vision of expanding the department.
Good morning, Winners! Thanks so much for rocking with The Morning Win today. We appreciate you here.
I don’t even want to waste time with small talk. I know you saw that Anthony Edwards dunk on John Collins last night. And, if you didn’t, what in the world are you doing?!?
I’ve seen so many people calling this the Dunk of the Year. And, yeah, that’s appropriate, I guess. There hasn’t been — and will not be — a better dunk than this this season.
But calling this the Dunk of the Year undersells this, man. It feels disrespectful to me. It’s much, much bigger than that. This might be the best dunk I’ve ever seen. It’s definitely the best one I’ve seen in at least a decade, at the very least.
Yeah, we’ve seen other immaculate poster dunks from other dunkers recently. Ja Morant has quite a few. Zion Williamson’s got some here and there. Ant Man’s got some others out there, too.
But this one here from Ant? This is generational, man. We’re going to remember this one for a long, long time. This is the one that’s going to have kids dunking their friends into trash cans and calling out “ANT MAN” as they do it.
This is one of the best dunks I’ve ever seen. Shoutout to Edwards for giving us this treat. My condolences to John Collins for involuntarily being on the wrong side of history.
Palace intrigue in the MLBPA
Mandatory Credit: Greg Lovett-USA TODAY NETWORK
There might be some big changes coming to the Major League Baseball Players Association soon.
Players held a zoom call on Monday that ended with an informal vote to oust MLBPA deputy executive director Bruce Meyer with MLBPA — the No. 2 guy in the player’s association, ESPN’s Jeff Passan reports.
Players have long had complaints about the current union leadership and their ability to get things done. There’s also a belief that super agent Scott Boras has a strong influence on the union through Meyer — a claim he denied back in 2021.
This friction is coming at such a fascinating time when teams spent nearly $3 billion this offseason on player contracts. On the surface, that looks great! Especially following the newly minted CBA.
But when you really dig into it, Shohei Ohtani ($700 million) and Yoshinobu Yamamoto ($325 million) are making over a third of that money with one team. Meanwhile, Passan writes, most teams are still spending less:
“Two historic financial behemoths, the New York Yankees and Boston Red Sox, committed less than $50 million to free agents. Eight teams — the Oakland Athletics, Baltimore Orioles, Washington Nationals, Tampa Bay Rays, Minnesota Twins, Miami Marlins, Cleveland Guardians and Colorado Rockies — guaranteed less than $15 million.”
The top of the league is doing great. The middle? Not so much. That’s a problem.
It’s hard to blame the players for wanting change when these are the results. We’ll see if Meyer ends up being the fall guy for it.
Keenan Allen keeps it real
Mandatory Credit: Kirby Lee-USA TODAY Sports
Keenan Allen doesn’t play about his paper. He was asked why he left the Chargers this season after being traded and, essentially, that was his answer. Robert Zeglinski has more here:
“As Allen explained during his introductory Bears press conference, when the Chargers approached him about restructuring his contract, his answer to his former employer wasn’t emotional. The 31-year-old playmaker said he bluntly told them it wasn’t happening because he was coming off one of his best statistical seasons. That’s it.”
I’m not mad at this at all. When you’re performing at your best, you expect to be paid for it. You definitely don’t expect your job to ask you to put that money on layaway. That’s unfair.
Allen is getting what he deserves from the Bears. Is it a worse situation? Maybe. But Zeglinski asks a poignant question in his piece: “Why take a pay cut or move around money you’re owed in writing just to help your employer, especially after you performed well?”
My thoughts, exactly. Get your money, Keenan Allen. Good on you.
Quick hits: Caitlin Clark and the rise of sports betting… The latest NBA MVP ladder … and more
Anthony Edwards’ teammates couldn’t believe it either.
Anthony Edwards’ dunk over John Collins Monday is the NBA’s likely dunk of the year. The Ant-Man hit a button to transform into Giant-Man and absolutely destroyed the person in front of him. If you haven’t seen it yet, you’ll definitely want to check out every angle of this gravity-defying dunk.
Now, whatever reaction you had to watching it, just imagine if you had seen it in person — just a few feet away. That was the experience of Kyle Anderson, and his real-time reaction told the whole story of how incredible the dunk was.
So many of those Trae Young dimes are going to Jalen Johnson now!
Jalen Johnson had another excellent showing during Atlanta’s victory over Orlando in Mexico City on Thursday night.
Johnson, who has moved into the starting lineup for the Hawks, has reached double-digit scoring figures in all but one appearance so far this season. He is averaging career-highs of 14.9 points, 8.9 rebounds and 2.6 assists per game.
While his jumper has improved, it is his play near the basket where he has most impressed. Johnson is currently shooting 82 percent at the basket, via Cleaning the Glass, and is one of the league’s leaders in dunks.
Jalen Johnson ranks 7th in the NBA this season with 16 dunks. Here are all of them: pic.twitter.com/754L3S9B4W
Johnson’s early ascension from someone who did not play many minutes in his first two professional seasons to where he is today as a crucial player for Atlanta is already quite remarkable.
But none of it would be possible if not for the Hawks trading John Collins during the offseason. The return for Collins wasn’t massive but it created an opening for more offensive touches elsewhere.
Over the course of the past few seasons combined, via PBPStats, no one player assisted a teammate more often than Trae Young found Collins.
Per 36 minutes, Young averaged 3.59 assists to Collins during their time together in Atlanta. Young is now averaging 3.48 assists per 36 to Johnson so far this year, including this remarkable behind-the-back alley-oop dime:
The best news of all is that his play is seemingly contributing to winning basketball, too. Atlanta has a positive point differential of 68 points when Johnson has played this season, which is the highest plus-minus of anyone on the roster.
The Hawks have outscored opponents by 22.0 points per 100 possessions when he is on relative to when he is off, via Cleaning the Glass, which ranks in the 93rd percentile among all players in the league this season.
Thanks to the playing time he has received by trading Collins, it seems very possible that Atlanta may have an emerging third star on its roster.
Collins was dealt to the Jazz in exchange for NBA veteran Rudy Gay and a future second-round draft pick, per ESPN’s Adrian Wojnarowski. Collins, a 25-year-old forward who is averaging 15.8 points and 8.0 rebounds per game during his professional career, should provide tremendous value for Utah.
Even though the 6-foot-9 forward was not a part of the future plans for the Hawks, he can help with offensive versatility in the frontcourt for the Jazz next season.
Since entering the league in 2017-18, the forward is one of just four players to record at least 450 dunks as well as more than 300 3-pointers, according to Stathead. The others are just LeBron James, Giannis Antetokounmpo and Aaron Gordon.
Collins will join 2023 NBA All-Star Lauri Markkanen in the frontcourt. Markkanen and Collins were two of just fourteen players in the league to record at least 70 dunks and 70 3-pointers last season.
Here is the rest of the projected starting lineup for Utah before they begin free agency or complete any further trades:
We’re talking about a 25-year-old forward who can score, block a shot per game, rebound and occasionally hit a three pointer. The return there should be fairly big, right?
Except … not so much in this deal that broke on Monday involving the player with a lot of money left of his contract. And we’ll explain why as we grade the trade that sent Collins to the Utah Jazz, giving the rebuilding team another young piece to build around.
Here’s how NBA Twitter reacted to the Hawks trading John Collins.
According to Adrian Wojnarowski, the Hawks are finalizing a trade to send John Collins to the Jazz for Rudy Gay and a future second-round pick.
Atlanta’s largely unloading Collins’ three years, $78 million for some roster-building flexibility and alignment with looming changes to the salary cap.
Here are the best reactions on Twitter from fans following the latest move in the Association.
The Brooklyn Nets have had a longstanding interest in Atlanta Hawks forward John Collins, according to NetsDaily.
The Brooklyn Nets have some matters to attend to during this offseason starting with the 2023 NBA Draft a few days from now. According to NetsDaily, Brooklyn has had interest in Atlanta Hawks big man John Collins in a potential trade.
Collins, 25, is coming off a down season as he averaged just 13.1 points, 6.5 rebounds, and 1.0 blocks per game while shooting 50.8% from the field and 29.2% from three-point land. Before the 2022-23 season, Collins was averaging 16.5 points, 8.3 rebounds, and 1.0 blocks per contest while shooting 55.9% from the field and 37.6% from behind the three-point line.
Brooklyn has been looking to add depth to its frontcourt as the only true big men on the team are starting center Nic Claxton and backup center Day’Ron Sharpe who is entering his third season in the league. Last season, the Nets signed Nerlens Noel and Moses Brown to see if they could fill the void behind Claxton. While neither Noel nor Brown worked out, it seems that Brooklyn is expecting big things next season from Sharpe if a trade for Collins does not happen.
Never forget, Nets have had a longstanding interest in John Collins of the Hawks.
This mock trade suggested by Bleacher Report could be one where the Brooklyn Nets finally get some depth in the frontcourt.
The Brooklyn Nets, like every other team that’s not playing right now in the NBA Finals, are thinking of ways to get better with the draft less than three weeks away. In this downtime between now and the draft, there have been mock trades that have been proposed throughout the internet.
For the Nets, trying to win now is probably their better option as opposed to rebuilding since the Houston Rockets own Brooklyn’s draft for the next few seasons. Various people within the NBA space have suggested that it’s better for the Nets to win as much as they can now since rebuilding wouldn’t benefit them much right now.
The mock trades involving the Nets have been deals in which Brooklyn gets a star-level player at the least in exchange for a valuable player like Mikal Bridges or restricted free-agent Cam Johnson. However, in this mock trade proposed by Greg Swartz of Bleacher Report, Brooklyn trades a couple of players for a guy who’s not very well-regarded right now:
