NBA
Clippers Had Been Targeting John Collins ‘For The Past Couple Of Years’
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All posts by Antonio KozlowUpdated4 hours ago on July 15, 2025
Last week the Clippers, Heat and Jazz agreed to a trade that sent John Collins to California, Norman Powell to Florida and Kyle Anderson, Kevin Love (plus a 2027 second-round pick) to Salt Lake City. According to Lawrence Frank, they’ve been wanting to add the 27-year-old for quite some time.
Collins is the kind of strong athlete that has thrived in Los Angeles in the past, which is why the president of basketball operations endorsed the signing of the six-foot-nine forward. Just last season, the former Utah player averaged 19 points and 8.2 rebounds in 40 games.
“He’s in his prime,” Frank told reporters on Monday, after admitting he hunted him down for two years. “He’s a power forward who can also play some small-ball 5. He’s someone who brings great athleticism, has shown the ability to score at all three levels. He’s tremendous runner, roller, vertical threat.”
The Clippers executive then added: I think James [Harden] will be able to unlock certain parts of his game that can unlock our team. He also can help space the floor, shot 40% from 3 this past year, will also help with our rebounding.”
The club’s president explained how the team wishes to remain with cap flexibility if a young star becomes available in the near future, but wants to be competitive this season as well. “It’s constantly pushing and how can we be opportunistic and yet staying disciplined,” Lawrence shared.
“We are one of the two oldest teams in the league and we are going to over time have to have an infusion of younger talent — not to replace the guys we have, just to add to them, and you are able to do that through free agency, the draft and trades,” he said. “So we did want to have flexibility going forward, yet at the same time we wanted to get better as a team.”
As for 32-year-old Powell, he’s coming off the best campaign of this career, in which he averaged 21.8 points and started all 60 games he played in for the first time ever. Miami will be looking to come back from a tough season, with Norman adding firepower as a 42% shooter last year.
