Casey Holdahl: No update on Nurkić nor Collins, though Little (ankle) will play and Hezonja (ankle) will not Friday vs. Pelicans.
Zach Collins Rumors
All NBA Players
Position: C
Born: 11/17/97
Height: 6-11 / 2.11
Weight:232 lbs. / 105.2 kg.
Salary: $4,240,200
Born: 11/17/97
Height: 6-11 / 2.11
Weight:232 lbs. / 105.2 kg.
Salary: $4,240,200
Everywhere you looked, there were positive signs in regard to injured players. There was Zach Collins, going through on-court drills with a basketball — shooting short jumpers and even left-handed layups — as he recovers from a torn labrum. No full workout with the team yet, but on the court and even shooting with his (injured) left arm. At the other end of the court, there was CJ McCollum working out with coaches — running full speed as he shot and went through defensive drills — as he recovers from a sprained ankle.
Zach Collins didn’t know it at the time, but that October night in Dallas, when he bowed his head and nearly cried in an empty locker room, his life was beginning to change for the better. The Trail Blazers starting power forward had just learned that his dislocated left shoulder, suffered in the third quarter of the team’s third game, would keep him out weeks, if not months — and if that didn’t take hold of his Adam’s Apple, the next few days would. For the next six days, he would wrestle with MRI results, second opinions, third opinions, and decisions of whether to have surgery or just rehabilitate the shoulder. He ultimately opted for surgery to repair a torn labrum, and he is not expected back on the court until March at the earliest.
Somewhere between the haze of dashed dreams and the post-surgery pity parties, Collins was confronted by what many professional athletes encounter during a major injury: an identity crisis. During most of his 21 years, basketball was the most defining element of his life. It was what he was best at, how he was recognized, how he managed his stress, and how he viewed himself. And now, basketball was gone until the spring, leaving him with a harrowing question: Who was he? “What else do you have?” Collins remembers asking himself. “And I realized, I don’t have much.”
So often, athletes use their rehabilitation to focus only on their body, and getting the injured area healed. But for the 21-year-old Collins, he quickly identified that his rehabilitation would be of body and mind. “That’s not to say this whole time has been sunshine and rainbows,” Collins said. “I’ve definitely had pity parties, definitely played the victim, and definitely thought ‘This sucks.’ But then you get to a point where you are tired of being mad, or tired of being negative, and it’s like, ‘let me do something about it.’”
What does “disciplined” mean, exactly? “The discipline comes in that the starting lineup next year is Damian Lillard, CJ McCollum, Rodney Hood, Zach Collins and Jusuf Nurkic,” Olshey said. “And we are going to get there. Now, some of those guys will be back this year, and some won’t. But what we are not going to do is give away long-term assets that can help get this team to where we really want to be — and where we thought we were back in September — for some incremental upgrade today.”
As far as teams that could pop up as potential Aldridge suitors, HoopsHype asked various NBA executives for their thoughts on the matter, and one of the first landing spots that was mentioned was a familiar team for the big man: “The Portland Trail Blazers could make sense,” a Western Conference exec told us. “Would Portland give up Hassan Whiteside plus Zach Collins or a pick?”
