Hoops

What's changed with Cedric Jackson!

^^ Sorry, that was me, not sure why name didn't show up.

"Now the league is full of quality players instead of the shambles it was in when he was with NZ Jackson is being shown up."

Except more than half the current league played with or against Jackson back then. Some of the players who have left include Penney, Worthington, Warrick, Prather, Beal, Knight, Creek, Redhage, Ervin, Wilson, Khazzouh, Flynn, Madgen, Gill, Wilkinson.

Guys like Webster, Goulding, Johnson, Martin, Randle, Ogilvy, Lisch etc who are quality players in this year's comp were quality players in 2015/16 when Jackson was last with NZ, leading the league in assists and leading them to the GF.

If you want to take something from Jackson's struggles to get back to his best, it is perhaps how important both physical condition and having a team/role that suits your strengths are to producing quality basketball.

Now the league is full of quality players instead of the shambles it was in when he was with NZ Jackson is being shown up.

Did the 6ers have a Shorter shoestring last season???

So many questions

Smaller, or Shorter shoestring???

What even is a shoestring anyway?
I hope I find out before my wristclock indicates that it is bed time

Thunder Jam, not such a silly suggestion. Have a listen to the Basketball Blokes podcast they are thinking along exactly the same lines.

"Jett, Naar and White can handle the PG duties."

Thanks for laugh Yarra Lad!

I think that reaction from Cedric was after he picked up his fourth foul, forcing him out of the game. You'd hope to get that sort of reaction.

Isaac all skull said was "MHI"?

Yeah I wouldn't say he is disinterested. "Frustrated" is probably a better term i.e. he actually takes pride in his performance and is itching that its not working out as of now.

Having a guy go to the bench and throw his towel on the ground and shake his head, look angry etc is not a bad thing (which is what he was doing in that Melbourne game when he was subbed out) - just proves his own frustration/disappointment with his performance leading to him being subbed out [not necessarily that he is pissed off with the club etc]

Yet to see full games, so going on second hand info, but enough people have mentioned that he looks disinterested. If you don't have a shot and you're a step slower, you can still, easily look interested and put in the effort.

I suspect skull at the top might be somewhat right, which is why I'd have been throwing offcourt support at him from the beginning of pre-season.

How is he different from the great NBL guards - Randle, Cotton - the ability to shoot. His handles and athleticism is on par, if not better.

Didn't mean to turn it into a Perth vs NZB argument - its been rehashed too many times on this forum.

My simple point was to talk about how good he was (Ced) and how good the team was that year - and also to point out how damn good the Wildcats were. End of.

"LOL, already Wildcat excuses coming, fact is Breakers won and threepeated, the most dominant team."

Not trying to make excuses, just trying to remember which year was which for context. NZ and Perth met in the playoffs a lot of times.

Perth dickz would have been bigger than NZ dickz for sure if only they were 3 inchez longer!

Two of those three years they beat Wildcats teams missing a top-three player, both times coming within a few seconds of dropping a game - and in 2011 they got absolutely smashed in game one.

The only year NZ played Perth in the playoffs and Perth were fully healthy, the Wildcats won the series.

LOL, already Wildcat excuses coming, fact is Breakers won and threepeated, the most dominant team.

Macdub, was this the season Martin missed the Grand final?

paul,

I miss that 2012-13 season. We went 24-4! and as noted above, Ced was virtually unstoppable.

Funnily enough, 3 of the 4 regular season losses were to Perth. Even more astonishing is that Perth absolutely clapped us in those 3 games (margins of 21, 25 and 15 points!). The one game we won against them in the regular season we wont by 17. Could never believe how much the margins were for what was two evenly matched teams.

That year, NZB went 23-1 against everyone but Perth.

Nostalgic!

Was like the modern version of D-Mac. A pleasure to watch him play, I hope he can at least get back to some solid form this year. We won't know for a month or two I reckon, he's been away from this level a while so it will take time to get his groove on.

"Since his knee troubles he's barely played pro ball, so time will tell whether he can get back to a good level at age 32, but I think after that amount of time it's unrealistic to think he can get back to his best, which was often just plain dominant, even against Martin and Perth."

Peak Jackson was probably the only guard in the league that Martin didn't bother. I also remember his hands were so quick he used to strip the ball from lisch when no one else could.

I agree, Jett has looked good this season. Tough man to stop

"Wait, why so much hate for Jett?"

I think the main scrutiny of Jett is because he said he was aiming to be NBL MVP this season. As a budget import playing budget import level basketball I think he does ok. If Hawks were paying him MVP money to play MVP ball then it would be a disaster but I'm sure they aren't.

NZ played both styles well, that's why they were so good, and Cedric was very effective in both, a great decision maker in the open floor and expert at using the ball screen to create for others. He was a superstar talent who could do pretty much everything but shoot from outside.

Since his knee troubles he's barely played pro ball, so time will tell whether he can get back to a good level at age 32, but I think after that amount of time it's unrealistic to think he can get back to his best, which was often just plain dominant, even against Martin and Perth.

Wait, why so much hate for Jett?

He averaged 14.5ppg across round 1 on 12/24 from the FG.

Played great defence on Ware in the Melbourne game and didn't get burned in the Perth game either.

I'd be inclined to be more critical of those players who had a stinker in the Perth game - Jett actually had 13 points on 5/7 shooting and 2/3 from 3.

The rest of the team (i.e. the whole other 10 who played had 48 points. Finger point them IMO.

A poster above said Ced excelled a few years ago when the game was a grind out & slower - and that he can't play to the new faster style.

But I think the opposite - he thrived in NZ because they played an up-tempo style which allowed him to get easy buckets in transition or on primary offence (when the ball-handler would always get an OB screen to start the offence) and get easy assists by pushing the ball.

I remember him getting a lot of easy baskets in transition/primary offence.

He is IMO a lot worse in a slow tempo style of game because he doesn't have an outside shot, and he doesn't have the moves and reportiore of scoring when the lane is clugged.

Naar isn't ready at this level

Jett isn't obese for starters he was pretty much the same size perhaps a touch bigger now then when he played for the Crocs in 2015/16 when he won the team MVP & best defensive awards and he's looked much better than Cedric so far this season.

A lot of people underestimate Jett by how chunky he looks but he has no problem getting past defenders in his bursts to the hoop. Deceptively fast.

Why a few years back, but not now? Are you suggesting Bevo has lost the touch?

Please replace him with Trice

"Interesting question on Bevo, this season will show if he is under or overrated ... if his recruiting ability is any good or not. People rate him highly but I don't think he has impressed that much since returning to the NBL."

He's made semi-final and grand final in three years at one of the lowest budget clubs in the competition. Seems pretty impressive to me.

Dat you Tre?

What can he do with such small budget. He doesn't have a Gleeson level of budget.

I'll start by saying that nobody in NBL history has been boo'd and jeered by me more than Cedric Jackson (I didn't see enough of Tim Morrissey) because I find it truly embarrassing to have your best player air balling free throws and 3 pointers on a regular basis but Cedric is a bloody legend and he is top shelf in terms of rebounding point guards and a tremendous passer, he will win Illawarra multiple games this season as he is on triple double watch and Emmett Naar will learn a lot from him, give Cedric until Christmas at worst.

People here are saying he can't shoot and he takes ill advised shots but he always has, he has also gone for intercepts and steals and tried leading fast breaks even when the opposition still had the ball (but he doesn't have a Dillon Boucher to pick up his opponent. So his gameplay has issues that have been successful and trying to post up other point guards being something he tried doing too much in Melbourne but he has a tricks bag as good as almost anyone in the league and as someone very fond of the Hawks, I hope that he delivers them outstanding performances here on out.

As mentioned many times above he and the Breakers did well during an all time low of NBL basketball, like Gleeson and the Wildcats did.

the league is probably stronger but he has definitely gone backwards further than the league has gone forwards. there were already signs of this in his last season here. he has been well scouted now.

The league got better and he didn't. Simple as that. You can't have a big glaring weakness and be an impact player here anymore. There are guys quick enough to contain his drive now. He has literally nothing to offer in this league and should be moved on while we can still remember the good times.

He was plucked out from a team playing in an extremely minor league in the US which suggests to me he had given up on playing professionally and overseas.

MHI....

Thought Joey would’ve had the best shot at appealing to him and getting his head right. Bevo a few years back might’ve had a shot too. You can wonder about age and the like, but if the attitude and effort aren’t there, what’s the point. I’d try a sports psychologist first, then a couple of other personal things with teammates, etc then cut him if all that failed. If the attitude was poor in a pre-season and initial games with no improvement, they might as well bite the bullet immediately.

Even if he can’t shoot, he should still be able to contain on D and rack up assists as a role player.

Hawks need to cut him and bring in an athletic forward who can score, Jett, Naar and White can handle the PG duties.

Age, poor attitude/lack of effort, change of game style.

I thought Dean D got a bit too much blame for Cedric's fall from grace at United and that has been confirmed with every Hawks game I've watched this season. He was by far the worst of the Hawks three imports in that tournament in Malaysia. The guy genuinely looks like he couldn't give a rats about basketball anymore and I've noticed the lack of interaction with his teammates too.

I know the Hawks have limited funds but I think Bevo needs to cut him before his poor attitude spreads to the rest of the group. If they can't afford a replacement so be it addition by subtraction they'll be better off for it I think.

Cedric was always one player I never bought the "hype" about he played in a championship winning group that did it's best to hide his deficiencies in NZ whilst also benefitting from playing in perhaps the worst period of talent in the NBL in recent memory when the league had almost folded, was taken over by BA and the spending severely tightened.

To me he doesn't seem engaged or interested.

If feel like the grind it out, low scoring playing style of the NBL in the early 2010s suited him more. Game has speed up too much for him and a reliable outside shot is essential.

No leg room.

Age

Or the other alternative is, he's still good but just finding his feet after being away a while. Maybe we should give him more time?

Was part of the uniform unveiling today, would be strange to be a part of that and then NOT make the team:

http://basketball.net.au/index.php?id=302&tx_ttnews[tt_news]=2439&tx_ttnews[backPid]=282&cHash=85bc7f09a6