Is Gordon Hayward back?
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Posted Mar 7, 2019, 10:17 AM UTC
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Pretty hard to be back to your old self when you’re playing 26 minutes a game and only taking 8 shots...
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Judging by two good games, no we can’t tell
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he had a prolific 30pt game against the best team in the league and then scored the game winner today - of course there are gonna be highlights about that
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This guy is coming off of one of the worst injuries a player can suffer and it happened when he was 28 years old - by NBA terms, that is not young. Of course he's not his old self, he's been playing competitive basketball for less than six months after going through a rehab that lasted him an entire year.
To expect him to return to the "old Hayward" the first season following his injury is just unrealistic. He's shown he still has it - as you pointed out with his recent 30 point game. But he still has a good amount of rehabbing to do before he is fully healthy. And even then, it's not likely he'll ever get back to peak Hayward simply because that's out aging works.
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For every dozen "hayward is back" posts there are two dozen ppl saying he isnt
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In b4 “OP just hates the Celtics!”
Which is why I included only stats, since they would spin my eyetest as being biased.
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Its the last two games we're taking about. The 30+game and the game winner.
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It’s really bizarre to me that we can’t separate posting literal data and stats from having some sort of personal hatred. That’s the unhinged, tribalism part of sports I guess.
You can post nothing besides his stat line and advanced stats and homers will take it as some sort of personal attack. Like, why is this a thing? Being a homer shouldn’t mean throwing all logic and reason aside. You should never use fandom as an excuse for ignorance.
I’m a Wolves fan. Wiggins sucks. I still root for them and root for him, but I’m reasonable enough to see the data and the film that shows he is almost borderline unplayable in a starter and does nothing at an above average level.
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Can people not just be happy he’s having a good game after he’s returned from a serious injury?
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Cpac is over so he's not as distracted. He is what it is
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For months now he's basically just been putting up his career numbers on lower volume, and per 36 it's just 2-4 fewer shots than he'd normally attempt. Other than turning some long twos into threes, he's shooting from the same places as well.
Biggest thing imo is him trying not to rock the boat and gradually ease into more of a role, along with the fact that people have exaggerated who Hayward was pre-injury. He was a guy trending toward proper stardom, not an established star. I don't think it's outside reasonable expectations that he would take some sort of step back in his first return year, then get back to where he was before the following year, then maybe make some improvements beyond that.
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I think you might've misread. "For months now" = recent months, not season-long averages. He was way rougher when he first came back than he's been these past 30ish games in 2019.
His per 36 in rebounds is a career high, with his assists being just 0.2 behind his previous high. Like I said, it's just a drop in shooting volume.