Hayward is about 6'7 and too slow to stay with anyone under that size. He's not physical or strong enough to guard anyone bigger than that.
He's 6'8", maybe a quarter inch taller depending on what shoes he's wearing.
And, he's generally been an average to above-average defender of SFs. He was a key cog in a defense that ranked 7th and 3rd in the NBA his two years prior to signing with Boston.
And I don't even know what to say to you linking concussions and toughness in some way.
I thought he was 6'8 but tried not to make him look so bad. And wasn't Ben wallace about 6'8? And Barkley was 6'5 getting 14-18 rebounds easy against hall of fame centers. It's what is between the ears, and for me Hayward just has to go.
For a player not knowing a pick is coming basically everytime someone puts the ball on the floor in games and in practice, is a player that cannot play for me...along with his multitude of other negatives.
I've just seen too many great defenders find a way to get by picks in a league of hand-checking and holding to ever forgive being that weak at it.
Also For Rozier to basically say he doesn't wanna play with Kyrie and Hayward tells me he knows what's going on, on the floor and has a higher bbiq than yall would ever dare to give him.
That's a silly argument. So if Hayward came out and said he doesn't want to play with Rozier and Kyrie, then would he "know what's going on"? Or if Kyrie said that about Rozier and Morris? There's no basis for that premise. Both basic and advanced statistics paint Rozier negatively. He might find more freedom on another team, and indeed thrive there (success in the NBA is often largely situational, such as Jeremy Lin with the Knicks), but he's clearly a net negative for the Celtics. We don't need him, and I sure as hell don't want him with his bad attitude and selfish play.
I'm not sure what to say about the assertion that Ojeleye could replace Hayward. If you're assuming that Hayward is going to continue to be injury ridden and miss a lot of games, or play like he did early in the season or like he did against the Bucks, then I guess you could make that argument. He did show significant progression over the course of the season and was playing really well post-concussion. Until we ran into the Bucks that is. He's clearly not 100%, especially mentally. There's still reason to be optimistic about his future, especially as his injury continues to fade into the back of his mind as he gets more game reps. I like Ojeleye, but the notion that he could replace the production of a healthy Hayward is absurd.