Gordon Hayward ‘can’t wait’ for what lies ahead
His latest blog post touched on a wide variety of topics and had an optimistic tone.
Celtics fans that are antsy to see Gordon Hayward get back on the floor in an NBA game aren’t alone.
The forward himself, in a blog post Friday, said he “can’t wait” for what lies ahead. Hayward, who missed all but five minutes of last season, has almost completely recovered from a fractured left ankle and is gearing up for what he hopes will be a full return.
Here’s what we learned from the blog post, which touched on a wide variety of topics and had an optimistic tone.
He didn’t miss a single day of rehab.
Hayward has had some difficulties along the way, including requiring a second surgery to remove the hardware from his leg this past spring.
He’s made steady progress, though, and in July he started to work on his jump shot regularly. Gradually, those jumpers included a series of dribble moves, and eventually he progressed to attacking and dunking.
https://www.instagram.com/p/Blf2f4jn55C/?hl=en&taken-by=gordonhayward
Next, he shared in the post, came the defensive workouts, with the goal of getting comfortable playing against another player. The agility drills, skill sessions and tennis ball tracking exercises were all extremely helpful, but he said that’s all scripted. Reacting to the movement of another player, and the infinite possibilities on the court, is a whole other animal.
Then came the competition.
By the end of the summer, Hayward was playing one-on-one with Daulton Hommes, who plays at Point Loma Nazarene University in San Diego. Hommes was a first-team, all-conference player his sophomore year at Western Washington University. He sat out both his junior and senior year of high school due to lingering injuries, so Hommes has an idea of what Hayward is going through.
Those one-on-one sessions turned into three-on-three games, and Hayward competed with and against players such as Josh Childress, Travis Ware, and Mike Roll. In his last week in California, he ventured to Los Angeles and worked out with trainer Drew Hanlen and some of the players Hanlen helps – namely Bradley Beal, Kelly Oubre, Meyers Leonard, Solomon Hill, and Langston Galloway. He said this portion of his rehab gave him a measure of where he was at, and he started to build up his confidence.
“I was so antsy out there.”
When he returned to Boston in early September, Hayward wrote, the action “really started to pick up.”
“I was excited to play five-on-five,” he wrote, “but there was still a calculated approach to what we were doing. I started out just playing one game of five-on-five and then taking a break while the guys went at it again. Then the next time, I was able to do two games. And you keep ramping things up until you can get to the point where you can just play with everybody else.”
He did acknowledge that he was “all over the place” the first time he played five-on-five.
“I was so antsy out there,” Hayward wrote. “All you had to do was give me a shot fake, and I was flying past you. I was so jumpy and twitchy out there because it had been forever since I had played. I mean, it basically had been a year since I had played five-on-five. I was trying to get used to the speed of the game, but my rhythm was off. My timing was off.”
He said the floor seemed cramped with 10 people on it, and he had to get acclimated to a new level of competition. Now that it’s week three, he said he feels much more comfortable and at ease.
Hayward said he isn’t sure how much playing time he’ll get in the preseason. He said his conditioning is great when it comes to running. The team recently did a distance test, and Hayward was the last one standing.
His in-game conditioning, however, is something he said he needs to continue to improve. He said he’d like to play a lot in the preseason to get situated, but he understands the coaching staff may see it differently and want him to ease back into it.
“When you get hurt like that, there are going to be lingering hesitations,” he wrote. “There is nothing that is going to fix the mental hurdle except for me going out there and actually jumping over the hurdle.”
Hayward turned to teammate Kyrie Irving for advice. Irving told him that it will all come back to him once he goes out there and gets in a rhythm. For Hayward, one element that still needs fine-tuning is the ability to explode off his left foot. He said he likes where his game is at right now overall, noting that he believes he’s shooting even better than he did before the injury.
Hayward said it’s exciting starting a new year with familiar teammates. Even though he wasn’t on the floor with them a year ago, he was still around the team, so he knows them better than he did before.
He appreciated their well wishes and texts, and said their support – along with that of his family, trainers, coaches, and the fans, among other people – has helped get him through the most difficult juncture of his life.
“Celtics fans,” he wrote, “I’ve only played five minutes of one game for you guys, but the support you’ve given me along this journey has pushed me more than you realize. It’s helped to pick me up on those days when I didn’t want to go to rehab, or wake up at 4 a.m. to get to work.”
