RJ Hampton Has Departed Aotearoa, Go On To Glory Young Padawan
The RJ Hampton experience is no longer. With only a couple games remaining and the American prodigy still dealing with a lingering hip injury it’s been decided that the best course of action is for RJH to return to the USA to get himself healthy and prepare for the 2020 NBA Draft, where the hope/anticipation is that he’ll find himself selected nice and early in the first round. He finishes his lone season with the New Zealand Breakers having averaged 8.8 points, 3.9 rebounds, 2.4 assists and 1.1 steal in a bit over 20 minutes per game. He played 15 of the 25 games that he was in town for and shot 40.7% from the field, 29.5% from three-point range, and 67.9% from the free throw line.
Hampton arrived at the Breakers to some significant interest around the basketball world. He announced his decision to forego college and take up a Next Stars contract with the Breakers in the NBL live on ESPN and immediately got people talking. Fellow players were excited. The NBL was delighted. NBA scouts were curious. The college basketball establishment was dismissive. This was uncharted territory for a prospect of this calibre to be voluntarily skipping college for a year in the pros and with LaMelo Ball quickly following him to the league suddenly the Aussie NBL was the place to be.
But how to feel about it now that it’s over? That’s a tricky one. Best to start with the on-court stuff and there’s not a lot about those raw numbers to particularly adore but then how are you gonna judge an 18 year old against 30 year old veteran pros? That’s just dumb, even for a future NBA point guard. It’s not like he was using up an import spot on the roster either... which is why this is so tricky. RJ Hampton was a case in and of himself. A unique figure in Breakers history. Keep that in mind throughout.
Per Spacial Jam, RJH had an on/off net rating of -8.5, the eighth best on the roster (Scottie Hopson is miles ahead of anyone else at +16.9) and the Breakers were outscored by 35 points in the minutes he was on the court for. Defensively he was always gonna have a steep learning curve. He’d come from playing against 16/17 year olds in high school to debuting against Andrew Bogut and that’s one hell of an adjustment to make. It’s on the other side of things where his natural ability would show itself and sure enough, as the only true point guard on the roster, Hampton had plenty of moments where his excellent handles and athleticism shone brightly. His passing was definitely above average, with an ability to thread the needle that isn’t blessed upon everybody. But maybe some of the decision making was hampered by a lack of experience, as he only averaged those 2.4 assists per night (for 1.5 turnovers). His shooting was pretty average too. When he could drive to the rim he was fantastic. When he was asked to hit from distance... not so much. Again, these are the limitations of having a teenager running your offence. The Breakers were 5-10 when RJ Hampton played and 7-3 without him. Here’s his shot chart, again via Spacial Jam...
As for the off court... I can’t wait to watch the insider documentary they were apparently filming throughout the process because it’s no secret that RJ struggled at times with the lifestyle. As you’d expect. His mates are off having university experiences while he’s living with his parents in a foreign country, getting dropped off at training by his dad. He’s basically admitted that he was counting down the days to return to the States. Once more, this is what both Hampton and the Breakers signed up for though. Nobody was kicking up a fuss or anything... and you have to say that the RJ Hampton thing was never the distraction it could have been. RJ proved himself over and over again to be a positive presence with fans and media and never (publically) grumbled about his minutes or the team’s record or anything. He’s NBA-ready on that front already.
Still, you have to wonder whether he’d do it all over again if he had the chance (and not whether he’d say he would but whether he actually would). Lacking the emphasis on player development that college basketball has, Hampton was instead dumped into a ridiculous club situation at the Breakers where the first half of this season had more bad drama than a rejected Shortland Street script. Staff members leaving. A player wanting out. Replacing an import at the last moment. A new coach with no experience in the league. Glen Rice Jr. Not to mention a horror show of injuries piling up. Things have gotten better as the season went along, with Hampton apparently more settled once Mody Maor arrived and took him under his wing, but what an outrageous situation for an 18 year old kid to find himself in. A settled and consistent team and who knows how he might have thrived. Although it never hurts to learn some of the harsh lessons of professional sports, especially as a top tier prospect who has probably been pampered most of the way to get here. If he hadn’t already learned what it meant to suddenly be at the bottom of the pecking order then he’d have learned it within a few months of being drafted.
And for RJ Hampton the success (or not) of the whole thing will be in how that draft pans out. His dad reckons he remains a top five prospect. If Roderick Senior really does talk that one into manifestation then the NBL will never have a shortage of Next Star prospects ever again (especially with LaMelo Ball a potential number one). If he drops to the late first round or even possibly the second round then this experiment might not be looked back upon so fondly.
As for the Breakers... well, they might be sweating on that draft night themselves too. This RJ Hampton thing was Matt Walsh’s little baby, his pet project to take the Breakers into a new era. In terms of the off the court side, it was a huge vindication for the organisation to be able to bring a dude like this in, a reward for ambition, though on the court it didn’t exactly turn into wins (not that Hampton is to blame for that). Overall you’d have to say that the global interest in the team and the league as well as the swell in home crowds probably means the Breakers are all goods with the situation and it wouldn’t at all be a surprise to see them go down this route again next season with somebody else but their viability to those next Next Stars may well depend on Hampton getting picked early on and proving that this pathway is a genuine help and not a hindrance.
It’s an odd time to be leaving. The Breakers are still an outside chance to make the top four and RJ expressed regret at his press conference that he wouldn’t be able to help the lads get there. But then his dad also said that if it were “a matter of life or death” then he’d be able to play through the injury. Cracking the playoffs is about as essential as it gets... but then it’s also kinda obvious that the Hampton clan feel they’ve gotten what they could from this experience and are ready to leave. Priorities are what they are and even from the Breakers point of view he probably wouldn’t have been the difference between top four and not (the difference is that disaster of a first two months when the Breakers thought they could win games despite a maximum level of disruption... it’s only more recently when things have calmed down that they’ve started doing that, no coincidence). Nobody’s leaving on bad terms.
If this is the end of a journey for the Breakers though, it’s only the beginning for RJ Hampton. One day, all things happening as planned, this season in New Zealand will be just an early chapter in his autobiography. A chapter that’ll be extremely interesting to read because right now it’s all a little weird. Everybody’s happy but nobody’s quite as happy as perhaps they though they’d be. Oh well, it is what it is. Here’s hoping RJ Hampton goes on to be an all-NBA superstar with multiple championship rings and every time he does something special they the Breakers can say: hey, that’s our guy! Fare thee well, young RJ. It was real.
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