Alriiiiiiight, it’s time to get to know Zach Collins! I know he’s not even close to being the newest Spur, especially after the flurry of trade deadline deals made by San Antonio.1
But! Since he only recently made his debut, I didn’t feel right writing this until now.
He belongs to the desert
It will probably never not weird me out when I see that someone is from Las Vegas. I know that there are at least hundreds of thousands of people alive who are from Las Vegas, but it always feels out of place to read that about someone.
Anyway, Collins absolutely demolished Nevada basketball as a youth.2 His high school won the state championship all four years he attended. And during his senior year, he broke the single-season record for most rebounds and blocked shots. Perhaps not shockingly, he was named Gatorade’s player of the year award in Nevada.
Coming of age in the PNW
Collins didn’t go to college for a long time, Playing just one season at Gonzaga and helping the Zags make their first Final Four and NCAA championship game appearance (they lost to North Carolina).
That was enough for Collins to draw the interest of NBA teams. He entered the 2017 draft and got drafted 10th by Sacramento, but was immediately traded to Portland, where uh… he spent a majority of his time being handsome and wearing street clothes at home games while tending to various ailments.
Some other cool stuff
I think I first actually paid attention to who the heck Zach Collins is because of this clip where he wanted to fight Klay Thompson. As a Spurs fan, Thompson has made me sad more often than not3 so it was nice to see that somebody wanted to fight him.
Although now that Collins is a Spur I’d prefer that he doesn’t fight anyone. He’s already missed enough time due to injury, I don’t need to see him inactive cause he tried to break Chris Paul’s face (but honestly that would be hilarious).
Other other fun stuff:
There’s an American artist named Zach Collins and I’m pretty sure it’s not the basketball player
As far as I can tell, Collins appears to be single. Do with that what you will, singles of San Antonio
His first ever tweet was a RT of an interview with him at Gonzaga. His second ever tweet was from First Lady Obama’s archived account, which feels random enough that I have to share it
Thanks for reading, please be kind to each other out there.
miss u, Derrick
Come to think of it, being from anywhere in Nevada feels weird now that I’m writing this
That said, I’ve got nothing against Thompson. He’s a fun player