NBA Lockout: J.J. Hickson's Jump to Israel Team Means NBA Is Sinking
As another day of the NBA lockout passes, current Sacramento King, J.J. Hickson, sees the impending doom of missing game checks, missing a chance at enhancing his career and missing a year in the short window of his NBA career.
Hickson is not going to wait around for David Stern and the NBA Owners to come to an agreement with Billy Hunter, Derek Fisher and the NBA Players Association. Instead Hickson decided to take his talents to Israel, where he will play with Bnei Eshet Tours Hasharo of the Israel-Premier League.
The decision was made earlier today and gives Hickson the option to resume playing with the Kings once the lockout is over.
Hickson’s decision to play in the Israel-Premier League is another addition to the growing list of NBA players that are not going to wait around for this lockout to end.
The first player to kick off this movement to play overseas was Deron Williams, leaving the New Jersey Nets for Besiktas in Turkey.
The San Antonio Suprs lost two of their key stars, as DeJuan Blair and Tony Parker have signed with teams in Russia and France.
Utah Jazz star and free agent when the lockout ends, Andrei Kirilenko has signed with his team that he played with when he was breaking into professional basketball, CSKA Moscow.
The Denver Nuggets are losing a lot of their players from their roster as Ty Lawson, Kenyon Martin, J.R. Smith and Timofey Mozgov have all signed contracts with Zalgiris Kanuas (Lithuania), Xingiang Guanghi (China), Zhejiang (China) and Khimki Moscow (Russia)
Even Chicago Bull Brian Scalabrine has signed a contract to play for Benetton Treviso in Italy.
These are the players that have signed contracts. There is another wave of players that have announced that they have been in talks with teams overseas, but haven’t signed a contract yet.
Carmelo Anthony has said he’d play in China, Kobe Bryant has been in talks with a club in Italy and Kevin Durant is in early negotiations with a club in Turkey. Dwight Howard has also talked about heading to China.
However, not every player is thinking about playing overseas. There is a strong group of players who will stay here in America, who will wait to play once lockout is over.
Then there’s the case of Boston Celtics guard, Delonte West, who isn’t allowed to leave the country, thanks to a Judge who’s denying his request.
Every day the NBA is locked they will continue to lose players. Some of these players are not household names, but if players like Bryant, Howard, Durant and Anthony all decide to leave, it will mean that the NBA is a league that has sunk.
