Unpopular opinion here, but I truly believe that Hayward has been better than Brown this season. At the very least, he contibutes to team success more than Brown does.
Both Hayward and Brown are efficient scorers. Hayward is a better passer. Brown is a better defender. Imo, we need Hayward's passing more than we need Brown's defense. The only player on the roster with pass-first mentality might be Smart. Kemba is a willing passer, but he's a score-first PG. Wanamaker averages good assists numbers, only because he plays within his limitations. He ain't a pass-first guard. The C's are 25th in the league in assists per game. We desperately need Hayward's passing. He keeps everyone involved on offense, hence he keeps everyone happy.
Basketball is a team game. Replace Hayward with a score-first wing and the C's will become a dysfunctional team, like we were last season. This is the #1 reason I don't want us to trade Hayward.
Hayward HAS been more impactful towards winning (than Brown OR Tatum), at least as measured using Win Shares. And that shouldn't really be surprising. He's a much more experienced, all-star level player who is getting paid a max contract for a reason. His skills are far more developed and broad-based. He affects so many more aspects of the game. There are very few things that need to be done on the court that Hayward doesn't do in an above average, positive way.
Jaylen is 6 years younger. He's still (steadily) adding new skills each year.
That said, Jaylen is at this point well ahead of where Gordon was back when he was in his age 23 season and looks to have a long-term upside that is much higher, health permitting.
Don't know about the ''much higher upside'' part. Hate to say it, but Jaylen is a one-dimentional offensive player. He can create shots for himself. He cannot create shots for his teammates (not consistently anyway). If you ask me, this is a big whole in his game. I don't think he will ever become an above average passer.
To a lesser extent, Tatum is one-dimentional as well. Having said that, I'm confident that he will become a more willing passer in the future. Yesterday's game was a good indicator of his potential as a passer. He was coming off of an abysmal performance against the Bucks. He responded by picking his spots wisely, hence he recorded 8 assists and only 2 turnovers! That's how he should be playing in every game!
Fortunately basketball is played on both ends of the court - Jaylen and Tatum don't need to be the offensive player Hayward is to leave him in the dust in terms of player impact.
Imo Jaylen's issue is that he doesn't get enough opportunities on-ball to develop those skills in game. He's certainly not a good passer right now, but Brad putting him in that off-ball role doesn't help.
People talking about this like Hayward is a bad defender. He isn't. Plus, offense significantly more important than defense for guards and wings. All you really need to be is someone like Hayward, which is to say you just can't be terrible. Hayward is significantly better than terrible.
You start wanting good defensive impact from your wings when you're regularly playing a wing in a "big" spot, Hayward leaves quite a lot to be desired as an average defender. You're also talking about his offence like it's game changing enough where it can completely dwarf strong to elite wing defence - it isn't.
I'm not really sure what you're trying to say with your first statement, but my basic premise still the same. Offense more important that defense by a lot.
Now let's get to the actual facts of the issue. I agree with what was stated previously; brown is a very one dimensional offensive player. He can be a good complimentary player but he does not have what it takes to really be the centerpiece of a team long term. Not as good offensively as Tatum and doesn't do much of anything at that end except score. Hayward is scoring less because he's accepting his role, not because he's an inferior offensive player to brown. He's obviously a much better playmaker than brown well. To your comment right above, I think brown is our fifth most important player.
As far as defense, where are we getting the idea that brown is so much better than hayward? A little more versatile perhaps but Hayward actually has a higher defensive win share than brown does. At no point have I ever heard that harward is bad or average. Note also that win share on the defensive end are absolutely minuscule as well.
And I disagree with your premise - defence is still very important in the modern game, the offence/defence split for the very best offensive and defensive players of all time is something like 60/40 from decades of data and actual results instead of what you're suggesting.
And I don't disagree with the opinion that Hayward is a better offensive player than Brown - he's a bit behind, but his defence more than makes up for it.
As far as defence is concerned, where are we getting the idea that Hayward is somehow a strong defensive wing like Brown? Box stats like win shares are terrible at capturing a player's defensive ability because they only capture a few things on that end of the floor: defensive rebounds, blocks and steals (maybe a few other things for BPM with its regression, but it's still far from enough to make box stats reliable defensive indicators). And at no point have I ever heard that Hayward is better than what I've described him to be as a defender after his ankle injury, he's been talked about as an average defender who doesn't give his team much juice on that end but certainly doesn't hurt his team either.
