After 14 Seasons Gordon Hayward Is Officially Retiring From The Game Of Basketball
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Well, I can't say this is all that surprising if you've been paying attention to Gordon Hayward these last few years. Once he got traded to OKC and couldn't even crack the rotation to end last season, that was pretty much what sealed the deal. He's only 33 so I figured there'd at least be someone out there that would throw him the minimum if he wanted to keep playing, but there's certainly nothing wrong with calling it a career after 14 years.
It really is crazy what happened with Hayward over the back half of his career, all of which can be traced back to his brutal injury luck. You have to remember, while on the Jazz this is a dude who almost never missed time. He was a lock for 75+ games a year where he played himself into an All Star caliber player. Then, the first 5 minutes of his Celtics career happened against the Cavs and he was never the same again. I mean look at this!
In all honesty, it's not all that different from what we also later experienced with Kemba. He was a guy who played 80+ games every year as a Hornet, got to Boston, and then boom. After that first year (82 games) he never played more than 56 again for the rest of his NBA career which ended soon after he was traded to OKC.
For me, Hayward will always be high on my personal list of NBA "what ifs". How could he not be? Even though it's been almost a decade, I'll never forget the summer ahead of the 2017-18 season. This was supposed to be the next era of Celtics basketball
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Brian Babineau. Getty Images.and in a way, it was, just not how any of us expected. The fact that we never got to really see this group as intended is a cruel twist of fate from the Basketball Gods considering all we got was 5 minutes of it. It truly felt like we were cursed once Jae Crowder cut under Hayward on that lob from Kyrie. At the same time, without Hayward's injury and Kyrie's bullshit, this probably doesn't happen
Jesse D. Garrabrant. Getty Images.which puts you in a bit of a weird place. Part of me is sad that we never got to see the Hayward experience that we all anticipated back in 2018, but there's no denying that absence is what helped propel the next two Celtics legends into becoming champions, so it was obviously for the best.
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When Hayward first came back from his ankle injury, you could tell mentally he just wasn't right. He didn't want to trust his body the same way he did while on the Jazz, and really who could blame him. Once the injuries started to pile up whenever he looked like he was turning a corner, that was pretty much the writing on the wall which was unfortunate. Because make no mistake, this dude could play
With his size, ball handling ability, passing ability, and being able to score at all three levels, he was pretty much the perfect player for Brad's system. It's what made the signing so exciting at the time. But as they say, the best ability is availability and unfortunately, his body never lived up to its end of the bargain. A wrist injury here, an ankle issue there, he just couldn't escape the injury bug no matter what he tried or what team he went to.
But like I said, there's nothing to scoff at when it comes to a 14 year NBA career. He's also made around $272M in basketball contract money alone, so I'm thinking Gordon Hayward is going to be OK.
It just sucks that such a talented player was snake-bitten like that. If he doesn't go up for that lob, or if Crowder isn't there to undercut him, I do wonder just how much of Hayward's career and the NBA as a whole is different. That started a ripple effect that impacted so many teams and the landscape of the NBA as a whole, all resulting in what we see today.