{"id":548047,"date":"2026-01-20T03:07:22","date_gmt":"2026-01-20T03:07:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/548047\/"},"modified":"2026-01-20T03:07:22","modified_gmt":"2026-01-20T03:07:22","slug":"jalen-johnson-opens-up-on-growing-pains-with-cj-mccollum","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/548047\/","title":{"rendered":"Jalen Johnson opens up on ‘growing pains’ with CJ McCollum"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Atlanta Hawks<\/a> have looked different over the past two weeks due to the Trae Young trade, and they have two new contributors on the team. CJ McCollum and Corey Kispert came over<\/a> from the Washington Wizards in the trade, and they are two players who have the tools to help the Hawks for the remainder of the season.<\/p>\n

McCollum specifically is known as a veteran in this league and has been on several different teams before landing with the Hawks. Throughout his career, he’s gotten buckets in clutch situations or when the team needs to get out of a rut, and he knows how to answer the call.<\/p>\n

The hope is that he can have that same impact with the Hawks, and though it looks as if he and Kispert are still getting adjusted, Jalen Johnson<\/a> has already spoken highly of the vet.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe\u2019s a good vet to have,\u201d Johnson said. \u201cHe\u2019s someone who\u2019s in constant communication with everybody. You\u2019re going to have growing pains, especially when you\u2019re trying to integrate new guys into the group, but thankfully, we have two smart guys who came in, and they\u2019re adjusting pretty quickly. We just gotta stick with it and stay consistent with everything.\u201d<\/p>\n

As the season continues, McCollum should be able to fit in with what the Hawks are trying to do, and hopefully, it leads to wins as the Hawks are currently on a four-game losing streak.<\/p>\n

Hawks still adjusting to new additions on the team<\/p>\n

After the Hawks’ loss against the Milwaukee Bucks<\/a>, Nickeil Alexander-Walker was asked<\/a> about how it’s been playing off of McCollum.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s just about reading points of attack and playing off-ball with him a little bit,\u201d Alexander-Walker said. \u201cI know in the first half, I drove, he hit me. Set a screen, I got stopped, he peeled off, I hit him, and he was able to drive a closeout and get a layup. The more we use our skillset and tools together, I feel like it\u2019s going to benefit us. And there\u2019s times that it did, it\u2019s just about communication, and learning CJ. And he\u2019s also learning us and what our system is and how he can be effective.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m going to try my best at being better at communicating. The tough thing about it is being in Year 7 and him being in like Year 13, I\u2019m not trying to come off as the guy that\u2019s talking down on him. He\u2019s done this before. But still having that open communication and saying \u2018Hey trust me’ or \u2018What do you see here.’\u201d<\/p>\n

McCollum is going to be looked at as the player who can come off the bench and be a spark for the Hawks, while also using his veteran leadership to steer them the right way.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Atlanta Hawks have looked different over the past two weeks due to the Trae Young trade, and…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":435799,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[3776],"tags":[676,208,3874,7,7046,677,2990,6,2144],"class_list":{"0":"post-548047","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-atlanta-hawks","8":"tag-atlanta","9":"tag-atlanta-hawks","10":"tag-atlantahawks","11":"tag-basketball","12":"tag-cj-mccollum","13":"tag-hawks","14":"tag-jalen-johnson","15":"tag-nba","16":"tag-reporting"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/115925224378239129","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/548047","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=548047"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/548047\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/435799"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=548047"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=548047"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=548047"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}