This is a smart trade, actually--Hickson has a lot of irritating flaws that make you lose patience (the Cavs tried to use him as their first option last season, and he failed miserably; as a side note, to think that this was the guy that was the holdup in the trade that could've netted them Amare while Lebron was still there!) and but if you see him as just another "cog guy", there's huge value in the offensive athlete who can finish plays and give second possessions by snagging o-boards. He's also a good overall rebounder, think real Amare-lite in terms of overall game. He's a good athletic complement to Cousins.
But there's a lot of problems: 1) he's definitely a poor defender--for a guy this athletic he's not really a shotblocker, despite a few explosions on that end last year, and his overall impact on this end was poor; even under defensive ace Mike Brown Hickson was a poor defender, so I'm not sure if there's much improvement to be seen on this end ever; 2) he's a bit of an overrated jumpshooter. He'll sometimes indulge in the mid-range as well leading to some frustrating exploits on offense, 3) A black hole. Hickson has that magical combination of being completely unable to pass the ball while being excessively turnover prone for a guy who uses that many possessions. In a way, it's very similar to the frustrations we shared with Carl Landry--if things bog down in the half court, it can lead to some ugly possessions with Hickson.
The template is great athlete, finisher, o-rebounder, rebounder, poor defense, questionable jumper, black hole. That sounds awfully like Amare-lite. Don't get me wrong, Hickson will be a great athletic complement next to Cousins and I see many lob passes from Evans to him, and with our team which lacks legitimate floor spacers we might see quite a few bricks, and Hickson excels at padding the o-boards. Those three alone make this trade worth it. I'm just saying that Hickson's flaws will make us preach for patience--his type of lack of team-intangibles (poor defense, black hole style) make it easy to pin the blame on him when things get rough. I have to admit, I very much prefer the "defensive athlete" over the "offensive athlete", and Hickson unfortunately falls in the latter category. There's guys like Hakim Warrick who are cut from the same cloth, and now he's bouncing around because of the lack of D.
It's worth trading a disgruntled SF in a position where we're stacked in for a guy who's still only 22 years old, was an attempted first option, and does help us in the athleticism/boarding department, so this is very much a net plus. But we'll seriously need a defensive frontcourt piece badly now, and Hickson's not the answer; in three-five years time, there's that possibility we might become irritated with him that he'll also be sent packing. We'll see about that.