Fool Me Twice: The Gordon Hayward Thread

[wilson115]

^ If this isn't a sign that we signed Hayward before the team was ready to actually do anything of note, I don't know what is. He's a good player, but this was an awful signing. Not tanking 2021 is looking like an enormous mistake unless Bouknight blows up

My sentiments exactly. We will never know for sure but there is a more than reasonable chance signing Hayward cost as an Evan Mobley/Jalen Green/Scottie Barnes or Cade Cunningham type talent/asset.

I'm so glad we got to witness the marvel of Indiana spanking us in the play-in tournament though. It was well worth it.

Or a Josh Giddey or Franz Wagner, youngsters capable of stepping into Hayward's versatile wing role for much, much less while we continue to build the team around LaMelo. smh.

[fatlever]

well, if we just had done the obvious and taken Sengun...

[Chapelchilla]

We were not going to sign nobody in place of Hayward if he was not here. Other people that were signed would also have moved the needle somewhat and it is quite possible none of those if and buts 20/20 vision rookie all star team wishlists being floated were going to land here anyway. Developing a culture of playing winning basketball is more important then some of these posters seem to want to admit. Stinking every year would not help keep Lamelo/fantasy wishlight guy in town. Hayward helps on both those counts. This year is a learning year at this point. Next year and following one are hopefully when investing in playing winning basketball will begin to pay off as the young guys get experience and grow stronger. We need Hayward to be here and help lead then.

[fatlever]

exactly, melo is not going to be happy on a perennial tanking team.

[JDR720]

The issue is getting another top prospect to pair with Melo/Miles would've done just as much if not more to help us than signing Gordon did.

With Gordon, the simple fact is we're paying 30m a year to a player who misses 25-40% of the season every year. That doesn't help us win.

Melo isn't going to stick around on a perennial lower seed treadmill team either.

[yosemiteben]

I'm way closer to thinking that we shouldn't have signed Hayward because he doesn't effect winning (which I agree may be disproven by our performance when he's out) than I am to thinking that he makes us win too much.

Melo specifically has some bad habits and needs to be in a more structured system to work out his kinks. I think he will definitely be benefited from playing with vets in more meaningful games. I think tanking would have been awful for his development.

[Liver_Pooty]

Only problem I had and still have with the signing was the Batum stretch.

[SWedd523]

The issue is getting another top prospect to pair with Melo/Miles would've done just as much if not more to help us than signing Gordon did.

With Gordon, the simple fact is we're paying 30m a year to a player who misses 25-40% of the season every year. That doesn't help us win.

Melo isn't going to stick around on a perennial lower seed treadmill team either.

I tend to lean more towards this thinking than what fats posted, personally.

Even more so when you include it took stretching Batum to make it happen.

[Haywardhomer]

OK, you can see from my username that I am a fan of Hayward. However, I feel that Hayward's "injury prone" narrative is a bit overblown (although I will agree that he is probably one of the most unlucky players when it comes to injuries). Regardless, the following link looks at number of games missed, salary earned while missed, etc. When you sort 2021- either by games missed or even salary earned, you can see that Gordo isn't as bad on the injury front as the narrative might lead one to believe.

If you couple that with the fact that the Hornets are 13-30 (since Hayward came to Hornets) and 4-11 (this season) without him (and yes I know they were missing other players during some of those games) there starts to be enough data that says:

1: Hayward impacts the win/loss record of the team substantially when he is not on the court
2: Games missed due to injury are a reality of the NBA. ALL of the following big name/ big salary players have missed more than the 15 games that Hayward has missed this season (and I'm only naming a few).

Kahwai, Oladipo, Jamal Murray, Zion, Wiseman, Michael porter jr, Colin sexton, Joe Harris, Paul George, Rose, Lilliard, Brogdon, Lonzo Ball, Porzingis, Draymon, Adebayo, Myles Turner, Ayton, and even Jalen McDaniels...

Play with the site yourself and see if it helps create some perspective.

That's all. Thanks for reading.

[Haywardhomer]

The link would be helpful:

https://www.spotrac.com/nba/injured-reserve/

Reason #127 why I shouldn't post on message boards at work.

[fatlever]

There is no doubt that Gordon is a huge boost for this team as evidenced by our record with and without him over the past two years. This is something we have been tracking, know the title of the Gordon Hayward thread on message board.

Gordon is one of only three Playmakers on the team next to lamelo and Terry. Hes one of only a couple of players on the team who has any type of mid-range game. And he's also one of the best isolation scores on the team. He might also be one of the top two low post scorers on the team.

There's no doubt that his veteran leadership has been missed as well as we have unravelled many times at the end of games without him.

Defensively, no one would confuse Gordon with a great defensive player. However, compared to the rest of the players on our team he is one of the better Defenders ( it says more about how bad defensively the rest of the team is). His size and strength gives us an advantage over other small forwards and also allows us to play him at Power Forward at times.

All that being said, it's really difficult to ignore his inability to stay healthy. It also seems to take him a really long time to recover from injuries. This will be two seasons are in a row where he is basically missed the second half of the season with a sprained ankle.

I don't want to trade him because we need him if we really plan to become a quality playoff team. However, if we were able to use his salary to address our absolutely god-awful Center rotation then that is something we should consider.

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[Chapelchilla]

I am unconvinced that Kupchak is not slow walking Haywards recovery time in order to actually get/keep lottery picks so we can build a real contender in the future. But, who knows. If he goes out again next year for an extended period I would look at it differently but with the pick protections we gave up to NY I think my theory maybe correct.

[HornetJail]

I am unconvinced that Kupchak is not slow walking Haywards recovery time in order to actually get/keep lottery picks so we can build a real contender in the future. But, who knows. If he goes out again next year for an extended period I would look at it differently but with the pick protections we gave up to NY I think my theory maybe correct.

if we were trying to stealth tank two consecutive years, he shouldn't have signed a 30-year-old Hayward to a monster contract to a roster of kids in their early 20s in the first place

also Kupchak has no say in when players return from injury, that's just silly

[Chapelchilla]

I don't think we were stealth tanking for the last 2 years for the whole season either year. We clearly wanted to establish a winning team at the start of both seasons.
After the New Years in both years we had multiple stars go down. Whether it was COVID or injuries by the time the All Star Break rolled around it is obvious that we did not have enough fire power to win a playoff series and so they did not cash in chips to take a bigger step. At that point, it is just smarter to hold guys out, keep our pick and come back around next season with more depth. Kupchak is methodically building something here and I think it starts showing dividends next year. The 24 season is likely the real target though.

[Liver_Pooty]

Although I was more than frustrated with Hayward not coming back sooner last year this season he had a 225 pound man roll up all the way up on his leg. I actually thought it was going to be way worse than a sprained ankle.

But yeah last year kind of irked me.

[luciano-davidwesley]

Although I was more than frustrated with Hayward not coming back sooner last year this season he had a 225 pound man roll up all the way up on his leg. I actually thought it was going to be way worse than a sprained ankle.

But yeah last year kind of irked me.

Yep. I thought he must be soft as butter if he wasn't at least going to try to play in a playoff elimination game due to a sprained ankle from 2 months ago. He's at worst not a quick healer but probably soft too.

[Dav7z]

Has anyone heard anything about a timeline for him?? Is he out for the rest of the season ?

[luciano-davidwesley]

Has anyone heard anything about a timeline for him?? Is he out for the rest of the season ?

Multiply the normal prognosis for a sprained ankle by between 1.5 to 2 and you will have an idea of when Hayward will be back.

[Liver_Pooty]

Although I was more than frustrated with Hayward not coming back sooner last year this season he had a 225 pound man roll up all the way up on his leg. I actually thought it was going to be way worse than a sprained ankle.

But yeah last year kind of irked me.

Yep. I thought he must be soft as butter if he wasn't at least going to try to play in a playoff elimination game due to a sprained ankle from 2 months ago. He's at worst not a quick healer but probably soft too.

I don't think he's soft. His first several years he played in 70 plus games before his leg was turned into a shredded pretzel.

[Roll Tide 09]

I think it’s clear that without him, this team doesn’t function well at all…which means we’re actually getting a steal with his contract.


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