The decline of JJ Hickson

[czvo]

Its funny to read the game thread on Blazersedge. Portland fans just RIPPING Hickson a new one because of his awful defense/boneheaded mistakes/missed rotations.

 

[Maximus]

I posted this in another thread, figured I'd post it here.

Hickson is doing the same thing he's always done. Put up some big numbers, play attrocius defense and hurt chemistry...he never makes a team better when he's on the floor.

The starters are in bold.

Matthews 16W 10L 61.5%
Jeffries 11W 10L 52.4
Aldridge 16W 15 L 51.6%
Lillard 17W 16L 51.5%
Batum 15W 16L 48.4
Pavlovic 12W 14L 46.2
Claver 6W 7L 46.2
Freeland 7W 11L 38.9
Hickson 12W 19L 38.7
Babbitt 9W 15L 37.5
Smith 6W 11L 35.3
Price 8W 17L 32.0
Barton 8W 20L 28.6
Leonard 8W 20L 28.6


Opponent's PER
Mattews 15.4
Aldridge 15.2
Lillard 14.7
Batum 12.0
Hickson 20.5

 

[3 Ball...GOT IT]

Yeah, offensive rebounds.... just empty, 3.9 of them a game. Pointless

 

[chrisrich91]

I think hickson and thompson complement eachother well. I'd rather have both hickson and thompson. There are ample minutes in our front court, and hickson would be a good complement to thompson. It was a mistake to trade for cassippi. trying to compare hickson and thompson is a bit of an apples and oranges comparison. They play different games, which is why they would benefit playing together like hickson and av did.

What do people STILL not understand about this?!?! Dear Lord.

Hickson was going to demand a huge contract for putting up good numbers that were incredibly misleading. We traded him because we knew he was not going to be reasonable in negotiations based on his true value in a team concept. He crashed and burned in Sacramento and hit rock bottom before Portland picked him up for cheap. The JJ you see now on that contract would never have been a member of the Cavs. He needed to go through a rough patch to give more effort and realize he's not worth the money he thought he was...not to mention EVEN after his learning experience of getting cut, he still just puts up empty stats and loses teams games because he's got too much Drew Gooden in his head.

ugh

 

[3 Ball...GOT IT]

What do people STILL not understand about this?!?! Dear Lord.

Hickson was going to demand a huge contract for putting up good numbers that were incredibly misleading. We traded him because we knew he was not going to be reasonable in negotiations based on his true value in a team concept. He crashed and burned in Sacramento and hit rock bottom before Portland picked him up for cheap. The JJ you see now on that contract would never have been a member of the Cavs. He needed to go through a rough patch to give more effort and realize he's not worth the money he thought he was...not to mention EVEN after his learning experience of getting cut, he still just puts up empty stats and loses teams games because he's got too much Drew Gooden in his head.

ugh

This is mentioned time and time again on here. He went to Portland last season and averaged 15-10 a game as a starter and was a fan favorite. Did he ask for a big deal?..... 1 year 4 mil

 

[MoFlo]

This is mentioned time and time again on here. He went to Portland last season and averaged 15-10 a game as a starter and was a fan favorite. Did he ask for a big deal?..... 1 year 4 mil

That doesn't mean he wouldn't have held the Cavs up for more $ and bolted if he didn't get what he wanted.

And the fact that he only got 1 yr, $4 M should tell you how he's perceived around the league. How many big men do you know that average 15 & 10 that don't get any better offers than that?

Fact is, he's put up these #'s in longer stretches before. He has to prove he can do it consistently, he has to expand his game, and he has to put in work defensively. Otherwise, nothing's changed with him at all.

 

[Lee]

This is mentioned time and time again on here. He went to Portland last season and averaged 15-10 a game as a starter and was a fan favorite. Did he ask for a big deal?..... 1 year 4 mil

Thats because he had no option. I am not a hickson hater, but his game is more flawed than TT's and he was going to demand a huge contract until he took a shit in sactown. He would have been nice to keep since we are never getting the sac pick and Casspi turned out to be a pile of crap, but such is life. Seems like a good kid and i am glad he found a home in Portland.

 

[chrisrich91]

This is mentioned time and time again on here. He went to Portland last season and averaged 15-10 a game as a starter and was a fan favorite. Did he ask for a big deal?..... 1 year 4 mil

If you can't see the difference between his situation with us and last year's situation then I don't know what to tell you.

With us he was our young stud in the waiting and our single rebuilding piece after LeBron left. He was improving and looked to be set to get a huge pay day. We weren't feeling it and traded him to Sacramento. It was a train wreck. He ended up getting CUT. That changed everything. Portland gave him a chance, and he proved his worth from the ground up for a portion of the season. He had just resurrected himself from rock bottom and was offered a guaranteed (or non guaranteed, I'm not sure) 1 year $4 million dollar deal. Of course he took it.

 

[Derek]

Forget about the money. He doesn't help you win games, that's why he's gone, it's that simple.

 

[Maximus]

This is mentioned time and time again on here. He went to Portland last season and averaged 15-10 a game as a starter and was a fan favorite. Did he ask for a big deal?..... 1 year 4 mil

He had played 19 games for Portland who had claimed him off of waivers...after he got cut!! JJ didn't have much leverage or any better offers than Portland's this summer. He was going to ask us for a big deal. I know this for a fact.

I posted this a month ago in another JJ thread...please look at the bolded part ----



JJ reminds me a lot of Drew. He has occasional stretches where he stuffs stats, but he never makes the team better. His on/off net numbers are always horrible whether he's on a first place team or last place team...GM's know this. Nice to see him stuffing stats again...amazing what being broke and unemployed will do for a guy's motivation.

HICKSON ON/OFF NET
08/09 -19.4 (66 win team)
09/10 -8.6 (HE STARTED 73 GAMES on a 61 WIN 1ST PLACE TEAM)
10/11 -5.5
11/12 -7.3
12/13 -11.8

From JJ's rookie year until yesterday, he is 734th out of 743 players in net +/-...his teams were -801 when he was on the floor.

JJ was living the dream while he was here. He was young, athletically gifted and was getting carried on the Lebron ride to 60 win seasons. He knew that other teams wanted him, he knew we had aging players, he thought he was the future and HE WANTED MAX MONEY.

"The Decision" - BOOOOOM!!!!

Ok, after the decision mgmt had to pick up the pieces and see what they had and how players would react. There were some players that were true professionals, that had a "screw Lebron" attitude, worked hard and tried to make the best of the situation(Andy, Boobie, Parker). There were other players that were like jilted girlfriends, crying in their ice cream after being dumped (Mo and JJ). The Cavs had to purge themselves of the ones that couldn't get over the decision and were feeling sorry for themselves. Mo was a no-brainer. JJ took a little more thought because we had invested a lot in him and he was young. In the end he got lazy, his attitude sucked and he thought we needed him more than he needed us...he was wrong.

Keep in mind the trade was hours before what everyone knew was going to be a long lockout. During the lockout JJ got fat, JJ was broke, JJ signed overseas and got cut before his first game. I think everyone knew that would happen so we took what we could get in a dead market...no one knew what the rules would be on the backside and everyone knew JJ wanted to get paid. We also didn't want him around our rookies. As far as the restrictions go, we have two firsts coming up this summer...it would probably work out best if we got it in 2014 so we'd have 2 firsts then and 2 firsts in 2015. Sacto has some talent, just assembled horribly. One more top pick for them and some chemistry moves and they could be decent.

 

[3 Ball...GOT IT]

Nice statistics, but I think people missed my point. Saying he was asking for a ton of money means nothing if he wouldn't have gotten any offers from anyone. It's a non-factor

 

[Jon]

I posted this in another thread, figured I'd post it here.

I already rep'd you in the other thread, but apparently can't stop saying this enough.

Fans love their box score stats, but whether those numbers actually help you win is always the much more interesting question.

One interesting factoid is that Portland doesn't even rebound better as a team when JJ is on the floor. Not on the O boards nor the D boards.

I'm not going all fine tooth on this, but it looks like Joel Freeland may be a factor. His rebound rate is not impressive (8.5 per 36), but he is second on the team in TRB% and perhaps opponents are more concerned with boxing him out? Or it could be related to Aldridge. Or maybe JJ's teammates just feel they need to step up on the boards when he's out of the game, but it's weird.

 

[MoFlo]

Nice statistics, but I think people missed my point. Saying he was asking for a ton of money means nothing if he wouldn't have gotten any offers from anyone. It's a non-factor

We get your point. The thing everybody is trying to tell you is that circumstances that happened after he was traded led to him taking whatever $ he could get. He was cut by a team that doesn't seem to have a problem not having an identity. That's a huge hit to any player's value, let alone one who gets by on his athleticism and hadn't proven capable of expanding his game.

 

[Cavatt]

I already rep'd you in the other thread, but apparently can't stop saying this enough.

Fans love their box score stats, but whether those numbers actually help you win is always the much more interesting question.

One interesting factoid is that Portland doesn't even rebound better as a team when JJ is on the floor. Not on the O boards nor the D boards.

I'm not going all fine tooth on this, but it looks like Joel Freeland may be a factor. His rebound rate is not impressive (8.5 per 36), but he is second on the team in TRB% and perhaps opponents are more concerned with boxing him out? Or it could be related to Aldridge. Or maybe JJ's teammates just feel they need to step up on the boards when he's out of the game, but it's weird.

It is strange because there were at least 3 O rebounds he got last night ripping them out of Tristan or Tyler's hands. I read that snippet you posted where it said he basically took rebounds away from his teammates. It seems like he does something that makes you notice him more in the game. I would have guessed he got more rebounds than Tristan, but he didn't. I agree with how weird it is. You'd think his scoring/rebounding would at least get him near 0. Isn't it even more impressive how bad he is since the Trailblazers have the highest scoring starting 5, and the worst bench?

 

[Adam]

I realised something, hickson plays like MyPlayer on 2k13. His strategy is just run around after the ball and try to catch it. This explains his poor defense, his high number of rebounds. If a guy near him gets it he just tries to steal it, like spamming X on the game.

So glad he's gone, although that poster dunk on gee was impressive