Poll

Do You Wish We Had Never Signed Hayward?

I wish we had made another decision
14 (35%)
I am still happy with his signing
26 (65%)

Total Members Voted: 40

Author Topic: Do You Wish We Had Never Signed Hayward?  (Read 15065 times)

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Re: Do You Wish We Had Never Signed Hayward?
« Reply #75 on: May 15, 2019, 10:52:48 PM »

Offline jambr380

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If Hayward returns 100% next year and is back to his old self, he can be a difference maker. If that occurs after Kyrie signs and Davis is traded here, most likely Boston becomes one of the favorites to win the title. If the Celtics win a title with a major contribution from old level Hayward, it will have been a good signing and well worth the wait for him.

This would absolutely be the ideal scenario and one we are all hopeful will happen. We still have two years left for this to work...or not. Wouldn't it be funny if Hayward had a great year next season and opted out to sign a bigger max contract with another team? Ouch.

Re: Do You Wish We Had Never Signed Hayward?
« Reply #76 on: May 15, 2019, 10:59:59 PM »

Offline bopna

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Yes.

Injury or not he wasn't meant to play in the East.

The injury set him back 5 yrs.. He looks and plays so tentative like he just got out of the draft but older.

Re: Do You Wish We Had Never Signed Hayward?
« Reply #77 on: May 15, 2019, 11:00:20 PM »

Offline Redz

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Yes, because then he wouldnt have gotten injured.  He'd probably be thriving on some other team.

It was a total fluke injury that was completely unforeseeable.

That is a very good point (and not one I remember being brought up before). By signing with Boston, an All-Star in his prime has been relegated to average NBA player even after many months of grueling rehab. Had Hayward signed literally anywhere else, he would be a dynamic star beloved by the city in which he was playing.

My vote has now changed to 'wish we had made another decision'. Pho is making a compelling case why the poll results should drastically change this time around (outside of performance, of course).
Dang, thinking about it like that is sorta depressing.

Maybe he gets hit by a bus if he went to Chicago, or struck by lightning in Dallas.
Yup

Re: Do You Wish We Had Never Signed Hayward?
« Reply #78 on: May 15, 2019, 11:05:30 PM »

Offline Sophomore

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If Hayward returns 100% next year and is back to his old self, he can be a difference maker. If that occurs after Kyrie signs and Davis is traded here, most likely Boston becomes one of the favorites to win the title. If the Celtics win a title with a major contribution from old level Hayward, it will have been a good signing and well worth the wait for him.

This would absolutely be the ideal scenario and one we are all hopeful will happen. We still have two years left for this to work...or not. Wouldn't it be funny if Hayward had a great year next season and opted out to sign a bigger max contract with another team? Ouch.

Always possible but it’d be a heck of a note; is there any sign the team failed to stick by him during his essentially 2-year injury?

Re: Do You Wish We Had Never Signed Hayward?
« Reply #79 on: May 16, 2019, 02:13:22 AM »

Offline ozgod

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On the flip side I wonder if Gordon wishes he never signed here. Kyrie wouldn't have passed him the ball that he tried to dunk; LeBum and Jae wouldn't have jostled him on the way down; he wouldn't have broken his ankle; and he wouldn't have endured a year of rehab, come back and disrupted team chemistry and players' individual goals and get criticized by the fan base for his albatross contract. The complexion of the team doesn't remotely resemble the team that he thought he was joining and his role in it couldn't be more different. He was expected to be the No.2 scorer behind IT and a team of role players that knew their places, now he's the highest paid wing in a team full of wings that have big dreams for themselves.

He probably thinks "man I should have signed that contract with Miami" (and half the Boston fan base probably thinks the same  :laugh:).
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Re: Do You Wish We Had Never Signed Hayward?
« Reply #80 on: May 16, 2019, 02:28:46 AM »

Offline trickybilly

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I voted no because I think if Hayward had shown no interest then Ainge would have pulled the trigger on Paul George.

Oh man, if OKC tear it down, and we can trade Hayward and Tatum and Brown for PG? I probably say yes. And I'm in the never-trade-Hayward-camp.

I like PG more than Kawhi I think...
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Re: Do You Wish We Had Never Signed Hayward?
« Reply #81 on: May 16, 2019, 02:40:08 AM »

Online SparzWizard

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I voted no because I think if Hayward had shown no interest then Ainge would have pulled the trigger on Paul George.

Oh man, if OKC tear it down, and we can trade Hayward and Tatum and Brown for PG? I probably say yes. And I'm in the never-trade-Hayward-camp.

I like PG more than Kawhi I think...

I can't believe Indiana got Victor Oladipo and Domantas Sabonis out of that Paul George trade.

Could've offered them something like Avery Bradley and Jae Crowder and be done with it!


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Re: Do You Wish We Had Never Signed Hayward?
« Reply #82 on: May 16, 2019, 04:57:55 AM »

Offline TheSundanceKid

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I would be more excited about keeping Hayward than I would about resigning Irving, to put it in perspective

Re: Do You Wish We Had Never Signed Hayward?
« Reply #83 on: May 16, 2019, 07:52:46 AM »

Offline jambr380

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On the flip side I wonder if Gordon wishes he never signed here. Kyrie wouldn't have passed him the ball that he tried to dunk; LeBum and Jae wouldn't have jostled him on the way down; he wouldn't have broken his ankle; and he wouldn't have endured a year of rehab, come back and disrupted team chemistry and players' individual goals and get criticized by the fan base for his albatross contract. The complexion of the team doesn't remotely resemble the team that he thought he was joining and his role in it couldn't be more different. He was expected to be the No.2 scorer behind IT and a team of role players that knew their places, now he's the highest paid wing in a team full of wings that have big dreams for themselves.

He probably thinks "man I should have signed that contract with Miami" (and half the Boston fan base probably thinks the same  :laugh:).

I imagine he would have stayed in Utah. They would still have Gobert and likely would have still drafted Mitchell. They might not have Ingles anymore, but maybe we would have signed him instead (I mention this earlier in the thread). We would still essentially have the same player at a fraction of the cost (is Hayward really better than Ingles at this point) and Utah would have their beloved All-Star with two other superbly talented pieces on their roster.

I will be as excited as can be if Hayward returns to form [consistently] next season, but I can't imagine he is too happy about how things turned out. Instead of playing the game he loves at the highest level, he has been battling back from injury for years while at the same time getting blasted by impatient Boston fans. And, who can really blame the fans? It's not like we ever got to see the best of Hayward - we just paid him a lot of money.

Re: Do You Wish We Had Never Signed Hayward?
« Reply #84 on: May 16, 2019, 07:57:26 AM »

Offline Birdman

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Voted no because at the time it was a great signing..no one knew he would break his leg
C/PF-Horford, Baynes, Noel, Theis, Morris,
SF/SG- Tatum, Brown, Hayward, Smart, Semi, Clark
PG- Irving, Rozier, Larkin

Re: Do You Wish We Had Never Signed Hayward?
« Reply #85 on: May 16, 2019, 08:05:06 AM »

Offline kmart12

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I was excited that we signed him and I certainly don't hold it against him that he got injured and is merely a shell of a shell of himself, I just wish that people would stop getting overly excited when he has an 18 point explosion and start the "he's back!" train prematurely. I was a fan of his with the Jazz and had hopes that this team and environment would help him elevate his game even further, but at this point I'd be content with him being the best (and most overpaid) 6th man in the league, but he has a long way to go to even contend for that accolade (maybe not the overpaid part).

Re: Do You Wish We Had Never Signed Hayward?
« Reply #86 on: May 16, 2019, 08:16:33 AM »

Offline IDreamCeltics

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https://www.youtube.com/embed/rg6I0W6sajM

Reading back through this thread it's really a clinic in denial and lowered expectations.

« Last Edit: May 16, 2019, 08:25:13 AM by IDreamCeltics »

Re: Do You Wish We Had Never Signed Hayward?
« Reply #87 on: May 16, 2019, 09:30:54 AM »

Offline mmmmm

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I'm going to post my current thoughts by re-using a bit I posted in another thread.

The comment I was responding to was using the time since Hayward's original injury in Oct, 2017, as the timeline for comparison to Paul George's recovery.
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That timeline is incorrect.   A major difference between George's recovery and Hayward's is that Hayward had follow-up surgery in May of 2018 -- just 12 months ago.

It's also important to note USG.   George initially came back for a few games in the Spring 2015 of the season following his injury and didn't play all that great, continued rehabbing and training during the Summer and then finally hit the ground running the following Fall 2015 as the top scoring options on his team, getting a whopping 30% USG% and 18 FGA per game.  Yes he was efficient, with a solid 55.7% TS% scoring efficiency.  But he isn't scoring 23.1 points per game without taking a lot of shots.

Over the last couple of months, most of Hayward's efficiency stats were finally back to his pre-injury levels.   He posted the following TS% efficiency rates down the stretch:

Feb:  64.4% TS (17.7% USG, 80 FGA)
Mar:  62.3% TS (20.1% USG, 99 FGA)
Apr:  76.2% TS (18.4% USG, 40 FGA)
Playoffs (IND):  61.5% TS (17.3% USG, 39 FGA)
Playoffs (MIL):  48.4% TS (14.1% USG, 35 FGA)

So as you can see, up until these last few games, which represents a pretty tiny sample, his scoring efficiency has been elite for the last 3 months ... but we just haven't used him very much.

Gordon is not going to post 25 points per game taking that few of shots per game.

And on this team as it is constructed, with usage dominated by Kyrie (who gets over 30% USG) and several other second level scoring options, there has just been no means for Gordon to post up big counting stats.

So that's why his box scores don't look like healthy Paul George box scores.

That last sample is literally an average of just 7 FGA per game.  Gordon was more and more 'frozen out' of the offense in that game as his touch rate (touches of the ball) dropped precipitously lower than what he'd averaged in the prior months.   Over the last 10 games of the regular season, when he was clearly playing his best ball, he averaged ~50 touches of the ball per game.   In these last 4 games of the playoffs, that had dropped to under 38 touches per game.   In the 2nd-to-last game, the one that put the stake through our season, he touched the ball just 27 times.

Think about that.   How on earth can a player contribute if he just isn't getting the ball?

People scream, "Why doesn't he shoot more?"

In that 27 touch game he took 5 FGA.  That's means that he took a shot roughly every 5th touch of the ball.  That's consistent with how he played overall in the playoffs:  One True Scoring Attempt per 4.9 touches.   That's not quite as aggressive as we'd like him to be.   During the last 10 games of the regular season, when he was playing his best ball as a Celtic, that was up to on TSA every 4.1 touches.

In his last season at UTAH, he touched the ball 4563 times.  He had 1345 True Scoring Attempts that season which means he was more aggressive, attempting to score once every 3.4 touches.  He of course got a ton more touches at 62.5 per game.

But clearly, we want him, at his efficiency to be aggressively trying to score more frequently than once every 4 touches.

My overall point is that, all evidence is that his ability to score efficiently seems to be back.  The tiny sample of the last few games doesn't change that.   But he's not getting anywhere near enough utilization to post the kind of counting stat numbers to make a lot of fans happy.   And that is caused by a combination of (a) not enough touches of the ball (which is on the team) and (c) not quite enough aggression (which is still on him).

I think there is no reason to think that he can't make a complete return to his former mojo by next Fall.  All it really should take is a commitment by the team to use him and for Brad to simply tell him to be more aggressive.  There is no reason, assuming his health doesn't go backwards, that he can't become a mid-20s, high-efficiency scorer again.

BUT ... the Celtics as a team need to decide what they want to be on offense.   If the offense is still oriented around Kyrie Irving, getting ~32% USG, dominating touches and shots, and we also add an Anthony Davis who will command heavy USG and we also want to develop whichever Jay we retain to become a confident volume scorer ... then I'm dubious that Gordon will ever get the committed utilization needed to make fans happy with his contract.
----------------------

To sum up:   I feel pretty confident that Hayward should be able to return to his former abilities, if he isn't there already then certainly by next Fall.  However I just don't know if he will ever get high enough utilization to realize his former numbers on a team with the offense dominated by Kyrie and expected to share a ton of shots by so many others -- especially if we add Davis.

So whether Hayward will ever 'pay off' in on-court value is going to depend pretty heavily on what the roster ends up looking like after this summer.   And that's a wide-open question at the moment.
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Re: Do You Wish We Had Never Signed Hayward?
« Reply #88 on: May 16, 2019, 09:54:09 AM »

Offline Moranis

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I voted no because I think if Hayward had shown no interest then Ainge would have pulled the trigger on Paul George.

Oh man, if OKC tear it down, and we can trade Hayward and Tatum and Brown for PG? I probably say yes. And I'm in the never-trade-Hayward-camp.

I like PG more than Kawhi I think...

I can't believe Indiana got Victor Oladipo and Domantas Sabonis out of that Paul George trade.

Could've offered them something like Avery Bradley and Jae Crowder and be done with it!
They wanted Crowder, Smart, and Boston's 1st (i.e. its own so a pick in the 20's).  Ainge didn't want to pull the trigger though because he was waiting on free agency and Hayward.
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Re: Do You Wish We Had Never Signed Hayward?
« Reply #89 on: May 16, 2019, 11:15:08 AM »

Offline TA9

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It's easy to say yes now given that he seems to be a shell of his former self. I'll give him one more season before I pass my judgment though. Many people tend to forget that he suffered a really serious injury. Hopefully, he puts in extra work in the gym this summer to try to reach his old level of play.
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