CJ McCollum made an immediate impact after being acquired by the Atlanta Hawks at the trade deadline this past season. He’ll be sticking around because of it.
The veteran guard has agreed to a one-year, $21 million contract extension to stay with the Hawks, a league source confirmed to The Athletic. ESPN was the first to report the agreement. The deal will keep McCollum out of free agency and on a Hawks roster that surged following his acquisition in the Trae Young trade with the Washington Wizards.
The Hawks were 19-21 when they sent Young to the Wizards for McCollum and Corey Kispert on Jan. 9, then went 27-15 the rest of the regular season to finish sixth in the Eastern Conference standings and avoid the Play-In Tournament.
The Hawks pushed the eventual NBA champion New York Knicks to six games in the first round of the playoffs, with McCollum a late-game hero in both of Atlanta’s wins. That included a game-winning jumper in Game 3, which followed a 32-point outburst in Game 2. McCollum averaged 19.2 points on 46.5 percent shooting during that series, after putting up averages of 18.7 points and 4.1 assists on 45.6/35.7/74.8 shooting splits over 41 regular-season games with Atlanta.
McCollum has been traded twice over the last calendar year, starting with a three-team deal between the New Orleans Pelicans, Houston Rockets and Washington Wizards last July, and followed by the midseason deal between Washington and Atlanta. He proved valuable enough to the Hawks, especially in late-game situations, to merit an extension for a franchise that should have plenty of options to improve the roster over the summer.
What this means for the Hawks
Getting McCollum on a one-year deal has to be considered a win for the Hawks, almost regardless of the price. McCollum was a key contributor last season who needed to be brought back, but Atlanta faced the risk of being saddled with unwelcome out years on the tail end of a longer deal, given McCollum will be 35 when camp opens.
The deal contains a trade kicker that is likely a small detriment to using McCollum’s expiring salary in a trade. That seems unlikely anyway; the real benefit of his re-signing comes in the other moves it could allow for Atlanta.
With McCollum locked in at $21 million rather than last season’s $30.7 million, Atlanta can operate as a cap room team if it can find a taker for the salary of either Zaccharie Risacher or Corey Kispert, overlapping small-forward options who both make $13.9 million this coming season. Moving one of them, declining Jonathan Kuminga’s $24 million option and stretching Buddy Hield’s partial guarantee would leave Atlanta with nearly $25 million in cap room, assuming they use their draft picks at No. 8 and No. 23 on Tuesday.
Alternatively, the Hawks could opt in on Kuminga’s contract as a trade chip and still use their entire nontaxpayer midlevel exception to add to the roster (likely with a big man, again pending their draft moves). The Hawks will enter the draft $16 million below the tax line and could get $6 million further below by waving Hield’s $3 million partial guarantee even without stretching it.
However, all this flexibility comes with a timeline: Hield’s contract must be guaranteed or waived the day after the draft, and Kuminga’s option must be decided on before free agency starts. McCollum was an important first domino to get out of the way ahead of what may be a busy draft day in Atlanta. — John Hollinger
