On its face, the recent decision by the arbitrator that allows waived players to retain their Bird Rights looks like a good thing for the Blazers with respect to JJ Hickson. Unfortunately, Stern is having the league appeal the decision: So, as I see it, this really puts the Blazers in a box. If they extend Hickson a qualifying offer, they'll have his cap hold reducing the amount of money that they have available for FA signings. Also, I'm assuming that the league will use the higher cap hold figure for Hickson because of the pending Bird Rights. Ultimately, if the league wins, there's no advantage to the Blazers having extended a QO at all since they can't go over the cap to sign him. In the mean time, they need to be in a position to get their FA signings done as soon as the moratorium period lifts so they can be in a position to match on Batum using his Bird Rights within 3 days of somebody making him an offer. Am I seeing this right? If so, it may make more sense to not extend Hickson a QO at all.
The arbitrator's decision was surprisingly strong, not even close. So it won't be overturned. The only thing Stupid Stern ever did to bolster his biggest market was the fake Ewing lottery, and now he may ruin Linsanity.
If we want to swing for the fences and offer a large deal to one of the big FA/RFA (Hibbert/Lopez/Gordon/Dwill) we have to renounce Hickson to have the money.
You don't tie up cap space on a backup player if you want to be a major player in free agency. There's just too many holes in the starting lineup and the Blazers haven't been in this position in a long time.
I just used him because people mentioned him a lot earlier this year. I personally dislike him and don't think he is worth the contract he will get.
He is a big who will still be on the market after everything is said and done. We can easily resign him afterwords if everything goes to hell and we miss out on EVERYTHING.
We are going to be over the cap anyways.. so if we want to offer big max money to a FA then do not do the QO on Hickson. We can always keep him by doing the MLE route. The raises just are not as much each year. Considering he got waived. I think he will still take an offer from us.
