CJ McCollum Just Signed a One-Year, $21 Million Extension With the Hawks. Atlanta Got This Exactly Right.
CJ McCollum is staying in Atlanta, and the Hawks just made one of the smartest moves any team will make this offseason.
McCollum has agreed to a one-year, $21 million contract extension with the Hawks, ESPN’s Shams Charania reported Sunday. The deal also includes a trade kicker, which is the kind of detail that tells you McCollum understands exactly where he stands in the league and what he is worth.
This is a 33-year-old guard taking a fair number from a team that needed him to take it. There was no extended negotiation, no public posturing, no flirtation with the open market. McCollum just signed and went home.
Look at what he did for the Hawks after they acquired him last year. He averaged 18.7 points per game across 41 appearances and shot the cover off the ball when Atlanta needed scoring. The Hawks went 27-14 in the games he played, which is roughly a 54-win pace over a full season.
That number matters. Atlanta finished 46-36 overall. The difference between McCollum’s Hawks and the Hawks without him was the difference between a fringe playoff team and a legitimate threat in the East.
Then came the first round against the Knicks. Atlanta won two of the first three games and looked like the better team for stretches before New York pulled away in six. McCollum was the engine of that competitive series, and he gave the Hawks an identity they did not have without him.
This extension keeps that identity intact. Trae Young still runs the show. Jalen Johnson is the rising star. Dyson Daniels is the defensive menace. McCollum is the closer who has been to the playoffs, lost in the playoffs, won in the playoffs, and knows how to manage a possession at the end of a tight game.
You cannot teach that. You can only sign it.
The trade kicker is the part that gets glossed over. If the Hawks move McCollum at the deadline next February, he gets paid extra. That is not a small concession from a player taking less than max money in his thirties. But it also tells you what McCollum thinks of his own situation. He is betting Atlanta keeps building, and he wants to be there when the next step happens.
Compare this to what other veteran guards have demanded in similar spots. McCollum could have hit free agency, tested the market, and pushed for two years guaranteed somewhere else. He did not. He took the deal, took the trade kicker, and trusted the Hawks to keep adding to a roster that won 46 games and gave the eventual conference finalists a real series.
The Hawks now go into the rest of the offseason with their starting backcourt secure, their core in place, and cap flexibility to add another piece around Young and Johnson. That is a much better starting position than most teams in the East have right now.
McCollum is not the guy he was in Portland anymore. He does not need to be. He just needs to be the guy he was in Atlanta for 41 games last year, and the Hawks are perfectly fine with that version of him.
For $21 million on a one-year deal, this is a steal.
A longtime sports reporter, Carlos Garcia has written about some of the biggest and most notable athletic events of the last 5 years. He has been credentialed to cover MLS, NBA and MLB games all over the United States. His work has been published on Fox Sports, Bleacher Report, AOL and the Washington Post.
