I'd guess most NBA teams would prefer Collins. You are just speculating that Ayton is in a better position to get the max.That's fine, but basically everything we have to measure players says Ayton is better, and we know enough about how NBA teams evaluate players to know that a good chunk of their internals are similar to the metrics that are public, so some, possibly all of them probably also think Ayton is the more valuable player. If we're looking at future contract estimation that plays a major role. Ayton is in a much better position to get a max deal than Collins was.
Not caring about metrics doesn't mean NBA teams don't care about metrics. We aren't discussing whether WE would give Ayton a max, we're looking at whether he is LIKELY to get the max. And based on performance and trajectory his agent should be much more comfortable in the assumption that he'll get the max or very close to it barring an injury than Collins' was this time last year.
You are making lots of assumptions on what GMS think based off public metrics.
Based off of trends, I'd say Ayton is becoming less valuable by the day.