Class of 2026 prospect Christian Collins hasn’t taken the typical path to becoming a 5-star basketball recruit. He hasn’t been highly-touted his entire life. He hasn’t played multiple seasons of AAU basketball. And he hasn’t always been the star player (though he has been a star of stage and screen).
Instead, Collins has carved his own path through resilience and persistence. He’s used his unwavering commitment to the game and camera-ready smile to transform himself from a JV player to one of the top five prospects in the country.
Collins has interest from several of the nation’s top programs. He’s yet to narrow his list, but he has scheduled official visits to USC (Aug. 30), Oregon (Sept. 6) and Kentucky (Oct. 4). The USC and Kentucky are seen as the two major players at the moment, while Collins also has interest from Arkansas, Duke and others.
Collins will be looking at development closely when making his final decision.
“I want to be one-and-done,” Collins said. “But if that’s not the case, I’ll be two-and-done, three-and-done, whatever it is. And then also somewhere it feels like a family and where I can really just become the best player I can.”
It’s been a long journey for Collins to get to this point.
The first time Collins picked up a basketball, he was one year old. His mother, Angel Bell, had taped a mini hoop to the wall, and Collins kept putting the ball through the basket over and over again. At the time, he was just learning how to walk, and that was Angel’s first glimpse of his interest in hoops. Fast forward a few years, and Collins made his way to Westchester Park in Los Angeles. There, he played with another current 5-star prospect and the son of an NBA player, Tajh Ariza. It was the first organized basketball experience for the Collins family.
“Really that’s when I realized he was different,” said Collins’ father, DeAngelo, who was a McDonald’s All-American in 2002 and played basketball overseas for several years. “He would do some stuff and I was amazed. He’s always had an IQ for the game. I remember one time, it was an out of bounds play that he did, that most kids don’t have the IQ to realize, ‘Okay, I’m going to throw it off this kid’s back when I’m going out of bounds.’ At that young age, for him to do that, I was like, ‘What, he did that?’ And I was just like, ‘Wow.’ He was just thinking the game that young.”
Collins played at Westchester from age 7-10. From there, the family didn’t have much direction on where to play next, but Collins wanted to continue. At the time he was playing soccer, baseball and other sports to find out where his passion lied.
“But he fell in love with basketball,” Angel said.
Luckily, a friend of Angel’s had an organization called HoopPhi, and Collins was able to continue playing for them before he hit middle school basketball. He also put a hoop up in the back yard.
“To me, that’s where he really put in time, in the back yard,” DeAngelo said. “He’s always dribbling. I mean, he’s always dribbling. He’s a kid that always liked to dribble. He used to dribble in the kitchen. I would be on the road and stuff, playing overseas, and Angel would send me videos of him dribbling in the kitchen, behind-the-back.”
Even though everything seemed to be clicking, Collins was about to have a major hiccup in his basketball career. In eighth grade, Collins suffered from broken cartilage in his knee, and it took him about six to eight months to heal. That injury loomed large for the start of Collins’ high-school career. After coming back for his freshman season, he didn’t even make varsity at St. Bernard’s. Instead, he was assigned to the JV team.
Collins didn’t mind the move, as JV afforded him an opportunity to play often and get back into the swing of things. And while it would have been nice to make varsity, he took it as a challenge.
“You never take time or opportunities for granted,” Collins said. “You may only have one chance to make a great impression, so go out there and do your best every time.”
For DeAngelo, the JV experience showed his son’s true character.
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“It showed his humbleness,” DeAngelo said. “It showed his resilience. It showed everything that you would want in your son and in a basketball player and a teammate. He could have been like, ‘Oh man, I’m taller than this guy. I’m better. I can do this.’ But he never complained.”
Collins spent his freshman and sophomore seasons at St. Bernard’s before moving onto St. John Bosco for his junior campaign. His move to Bosco is what really jump-started his career.
Before heading there, Collins was still unranked as a prospect, even after playing his first summer of AAU basketball with Team WhyNot. But during his junior season – where Collins averaged 13.3 points, 9.7 rebounds, 1.7 assists, 1.1 steals and 1.0 blocks – he started to become a household name. Collins went from unranked to top five, and he hasn’t slowed down since.
Even with the attention, Collins has continued to soar.
“I think ultimately that’s what makes him special,” Bosco coach Matt Dunn told HoopsHQ. “Even as he’s gotten more attention, he hasn’t lost that ‘I’m trying to prove everybody wrong’ spirit about him. I think obviously he’s worked incredibly hard to get better and he certainly has some gifts from God that help, but he’s got an incredible work ethic. And again, he has that same ‘I’m going to try and prove everybody I belong’ competitiveness. Ultimately, that’s an awesome trait. If he can keep that, I think it gives him a chance to be successful in this industry.”
This past summer with Team WhyNot, Collins continued to back up his 5-star status, averaging 12.7 points and 8.7 rebounds across 22 contests to lead his team to the semifinals of Peach Jam.
In the quarterfinals, Collins scored just two points. But if you didn’t watch the game, you would have thought he had 40 points by the way he celebrated with his teammates.
“For some guys on that circuit, the team is set up for those guys to statistically succeed,” Dunn said. “I think as a high-ranking player, to sacrifice statistics for the good of winning, even in that environment, I think that ultimately really separates him. And I’m proud he never got away from that. He was just about winning the whole time.”
While humble on the court, Collins enjoys the spotlight, as evidenced by his career as a child actor. Long before he became a top recruit, he booked multiple acting gigs, from a GMC commercial that aired for a couple years to being in an episode of Key and Peele.
Collins’ thespian turn came to an early end due to a growth spurt at age 12, or he might still be on set.
“It was several little jobs he had for two, three years and he was really comfortable doing that and loved it,” Angel said. “Where it stopped for him was the height. He went on an audition and he was supposed to be the kid of a couple, and he was taller than the couple. So that’s the only reason, as a kid he was taller than the parents.”
Collins also gets it done in the classroom. He has a 3.5 GPA and puts the books above the ball. His father said when Collins was younger, he had to keep up his grades to play basketball. One time, when his grades dipped and he wasn’t able to play, he got them right back up. That’s when DeAngelo knew he was serious about basketball.
“He’s someone that’s not going to quit, that’s determined, that’s up for the challenge,” DeAngelo said. “He’s just going to be there, no matter what. That’s who he is. Honestly, to sum it up, my son wants the hard route. He never wanted the easy route.”
