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aim2please wrote:truth18 wrote:Hot take: Smeathers is a hack.
Smeathers? Is that Gordon's trainer? Context?
R9ndo wrote:Hayward or Brown need to go to the bench full time.
I’ve yet to see both of them play well at the same time.
Has Gordon Hayward recovered?
Gordon Hayward suffered one of the most gruesome injuries in recent memory, and many people were worried about his athleticism after his recovery. Thankfully, and this was counter-intuitive to many fans, his broken leg was less of a long-term concern than, say, a severe Achilles or knee injury. The recovery process has been well documented, but what’s the output? Has he regained the leg strength and athleticism?
With access to tracking data and, well, Gordon Hayward himself, there are some more comprehensive methods of evaluating his performance. You can compare peak acceleration times during running and jumping, for example, and measure flexibility, specific times on the court, etc. If you don’t have that exclusive information you can still use some decent athletic indicators.
You can see a summary of some of those key stats below. This is comparing Hayward’s three most recent full seasons to his current one so far. He’s actually doing better on all the stats I pulled per possession except for the scoring related ones. And yes, I know people will focus on his scoring now. Perhaps a lot of that is rust and confidence, and we haven’t had a big sample of games yet. That’s backed up by the fact that he’s picking up steals and blocks at above-average rates — those will go first, especially for wing players, when you lose a step. People will focus on his scoring and I believe they’ll miss those peripheral stats by not adjusting for his lower minutes per game average. I think we need some patience here in how he’s adjusting to playing this year because there’s evidence his body is there. He just needs to find the scoring punch again.
KumaJG wrote:Hayward needs to come off the bench til gets right.
FeedReed wrote:he's just not making his shots, but he makes the right play out there the majority of the time which is a lot more than can be said for brown, and especially tatum. i really wish they'd draw up mor plays for him to shoot mid range j's. the team used to run 5,000 pindown plays for bradley every game resulting in open 17 footers. why can't they do that for hayward? being forced to shoot the 3 is hurting him.
GuyClinch wrote:I'd start Hayward - bench Tatum. Both Tatum and Hayward take too many bad mid-range shots. But Hayward is a smart passer and a sharp player overall. I don't feel our flow is right with Tatum out there. He has become something of a ball stopper and because of this guys are less willing to get him involved. This means he compensates by becoming more of a ball stopper..
SichtingLives wrote:You can visibly see how frustrated he is with his current level of ability but this is still a part of his recovery even if the games count.
SichtingLives wrote:I'd take Hayward or Tatum out of the starting lineup before Brown though.
JHTruth wrote:GuyClinch wrote:I'd start Hayward - bench Tatum. Both Tatum and Hayward take too many bad mid-range shots. But Hayward is a smart passer and a sharp player overall. I don't feel our flow is right with Tatum out there. He has become something of a ball stopper and because of this guys are less willing to get him involved. This means he compensates by becoming more of a ball stopper..
Hayward's athleticism is so diminished it lowers the energy on the team unfortunately. Between him and Tatum, you have two low-energy guys playing at like half-speed and it's killing us. I'd almost get radical and bench them BOTH and Smart and Mook. I know everyone wants to be patient with Gordon and all that but he's not even close guys and Milwaukee and Toronto are GOOD. We can't let the gap grow being patient with guys because of their feelings.
