The bad news is when Hayward returns, Jaylen will get less shot attempts.
I was curious because people always say this as a negative effect to a key player coming back - that they will take shots and opportunities away from the other guys. So I checked. Here are the FGAs of our top 6 wing/ball handler players in FGA. I averaged their FGA pre- and post-Hayward injury.
Note these averages are based on games played in.
Hayward was averaging 13.8 FGA in 8 games before his injury, well below Tatum and Kemba and around the same as Jaylen. Jaylen goes from 13.4 FGA to 15.8 FGA in Hayward's absence, and the pre-Hayward numbers are probably skewed by the fact that he stumbled a bit coming into the season and only played 5 games with Gordon. Tatum's FGA hasn't changed, he's averaged 18 all the way through. Kemba's has actually dropped from 18.3 to 16.5 (skewed by his Denver game where he got injured). I suspect if you look at minutes played (which I could, I was a bit lazy to put it in a spreadsheet but I can if people are interested) their numbers won't be all that different pre- and post-Hayward injury.
The increase is more marked in the players who have benefited the most from Gordon's absence - Smart, Wanamaker and Semi, and guys like Edwards and GWill to a lesser extent. Smart goes from 9.5 to 11.3, Wanamaker from 2.9 to 6.3, and Semi from 1 to 3.3. I'm sure if I looked at some of the other guys who benefited from those minutes, you'll see their FGA up as well.
Our top 4 shooters are (in rough FGA order) Tatum, Kemba, Brown and Hayward. They're going to get their shots up. I don't see any reason that would change because Gordon's coming back. I don't think any of those guys will be thinking "oh noes! my FGA is going to go down because G is coming back to take some of them". I think they'll be thinking "with G back I'm going to get better looks because a) he's unselfish and has a pass-first mentality and b) he knows how to drive and find the open man".
It's going to be the supporting guys, Wanamaker, Smart, Semi, among others, who will probably find some minutes squeezed and consequently will probably see a drop in their shots. It's unfortunate but it's the way it is.
PS Gratz on your 2000