What’s different today if Gordon Hayward never gets hurt? [CelticsBlog]
I don’t think much really changes.
I’m certain with a healthy Hayward they beat Cleveland in the ECF that year, I think The Finals would end up like 2021 though. I don’t think they beat the Warriors.
Kyrie still likely leaves, and Hayward probably stays a bit longer but still gets traded anyway.
Domino effect maybe they don’t end up swinging the trades for Jrue and Porzingus
There may have been extra pressure to trade one of the Js.
They also would have won the bubble finals. They were close to beating Miami who did nothing in the finals.
LeBron historically feasted on the Celtics. AD was probably at his best too. Plus Rondo, who was calling out Brad Stevens’ plays in 2017 as a member of the Bulls who had a 2-0 series lead before he went down. I don’t think that iteration of the Celtics were beating that Lakers team.
People forget just how much the heat sucked in those finals.
Bam had a neck injury, Butler rolled his ankle and Dragic tore his planters.
Even with that the series still went 6 games.
I’ll also add, the lakers started that year 24-3. the added break of the initial covid outbreak definitely helped, but people act like they were some garbage team who got lucky with the bubble. I hate the lakers, but it’s dishonest to say they weren’t a good team that year.
another factor is would kyrie have played in the bubble? he had injury issues that year so who knows if he even would have been a factor.
I’m unsure if you’re thinking Kyrie still played for the C’s that year or bringing up the Nets, but he played in Brooklyn during the bubble. He left after sabotaging us against the Bucks in 2019 lol.
kyrie hurt his shoulder that year and didn’t go to the bubble. my point was more the lakers were better than people generally give them credit for. i should have mentioned that this was also under the assumption that kyrie resigned with the celtics after 2019. believe me i remember the 2019 bucks series, dude said he was a basketball savant then put up consecutive stinkers and even said “who cares?” in the postgame press conference
Fair point. I try to not remember that 2019 series lol
you and me both, so much fumbled potential with that group
There are no more J’s. People better live in reality.
I don’t know if Kyrie would’ve left. If anything, us looking like a true contender would’ve attracted KD. A healthy Hayward could’ve been an asset in a sign-and-trade.
A healthy Hayward wouldn’t have been traded because he was genuinely supposed to be our best player. He was a better player than Kyrie.
We never saw that side of him because he got injured so early, and came back so passive, but Hayward was going to be the face of the team. Pre-injury, Hayward was up there with Butler and George as the leaders in that 2nd tier of elite SFs (beneath LeBron, Durant, Kawhi).
I generally agree with you, except that if the price of getting KD was trading Hayward, we would’ve done it. Looking back and thinking about it more, though, I don’t know that there’s a time period after Kyrie joined that it would’ve been a possibility. KD joined GS before Kyrie was in Boston and I don’t see them trading him unless he made it clear he wouldn’t re-sign. Then he was injured and if we had a healthy Hayward, we might not want to risk KD not being his former self.
Yeah it’s definitely an upgrade, I just don’t know if I’ve ever seen a team trade their #1 to help build a team with their #2.
Like I can’t see Miami trading Butler to create a team around Durant/Bam.
Even after the ankle he was an incredibly efficient scorer and decision maker. He was like 19/5/5 on 50/40/85 from the 2019-20 season until 21-22.
He just kept going to teams with insane wing depth. His age and injury proneness post ankle sewered what could’ve been a great second half of his career.
The biggest domino is that Horford probably stays if Hayward is healthy. Maybe he stays in 2025 too on a minimum if he had been here for a decade at that point, and he stops Embiid in the playoffs.
Do you mean 2022?
I don’t like this. I still remember exactly how I felt watching that injury. That was the most utterly deflating moment in sports I can remember. That team was going to be so fun to watch. Really talented veterans on the right side of the aging curve to go along with Tatum and Brown. A team that offensively gifted and seemingly well constructed and coached was going to be so fun to watch.
It’s possible that injury actually stunted the development of Brown. Maybe a little more time where he was clearly lower on the totem pole would have been helpful, but who knows.
It’s funny to think about an alternate reality Hayward doesn’t get hurt, the Celtics have an all time season, and Stevens gets coach of the year over Casey, even though it would have been a much easier job coaching that team without the Hayward injury. It still annoys me he didn’t win it that year.
More utterly deflating than when Brady blew out his knee in the first quarter of what was going to be a revenge tour for Eli ruining the perfect season?
For me, this is a toss up.
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Kyrie Irving is higher than Isaiah Thomas or any active Celtic in all-time Celtics APG, a better ball sharer than anyone we know and love today. I don’t know why we chased Kyrie out of Boston for in return, such a media masterclass to make him seem like a ball hog/asshole.
“A better ball sharer than anyone we know” Utterly disrespectful of rondo
*on the team or has been in the current era
…wat?
Kyrie’s willingness to pass the ball and his on court play in general had very little to do with what went down.
The fans loved him here and he was great until his season-ending injury. Something went haywire with the team chemistry in year 2 and Kyrie turned into a sullen shithead about it.
He wanted to be the alpha on his team so he forced his way out of Cleveland only to watch the Jays and Rozier nearly make the finals without him. Everything was worse after that.
Nobody liked him from the start, and everyone was yelling to trade him about 10 games in. Completely baseless
That is some extremely revisionist history lmao
Isn’t he the guy that shot us out of the Milwaukee series in 2019?
Said something like he’ll never shoot poorly like that after one game, then proceeded to shoot worse the next game? He was a ball hogging asshole at the end.
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Absolutely
I wasn’t arguing IT. I was arguing the second portion of the comment about it being a media masterclass about Kyrie being a ball hogging asshole. Which he was at the end. Kyrie knew he couldn’t be the man, so he went and teamed up with KD, we didn’t run him out of town. Two guys who couldn’t win as THE guy, but hopefully could do something together. We all know how that worked out.
The biggest difference would have been the delayed development of the J’s. I’m sure they would have won 50 plus games and maybe made an impact in the playoffs but the defense would have been an issue
Specifically Jaylen brown imo. Idk if he develops into a star player sitting behind Hayward and Tatum in the pecking order, and likely is flipped before he develops. Tatum was a day 1 starter but Jaylen came in super raw.
In year 2, JB didn’t look raw. And both of the Jays started in the first game of the season (i.e. before Hayward was injured), so they would’ve both had ample playing time. JB took the most shots and scored the most points that game. And while Hayward would’ve reduced the scoring numbers of the Jays, it’s not a situation where one of them would’ve been on the bench.
I think this is one of the biggest what-ifs in NBA history. You can go back and watch those preseason games against Charlotte. Hayward and Kyrie were going to be fucking electric.
I think that first year they were championship-worthy. It was an extremely weak playoff year. If everyone had stayed healthy it was also an absurdly deep group.
But more importantly I think the vibes would have been considerably better. Hayward and Kyrie would have better split the role of “team leader” and winning more would have cured a lot of the locker room issues that developed in his second year.
You have to remember the context that Boston sports teams had won 5 championships in the previous 6 seasons and the Celtics were vegas title favorites after landing Kyrie and Hayward. The expectations (and honestly entitlement) of the fanbase was at an all-time high. When they stumbled and Hayward never came back to his original self the city canabalized this team and Kyrie was sort of the scapegoat because he ran his mouth too much and didn’t know how to deal with Boston media pressure.
I think a healthy Hayward leads to a better team hierarchy, more wins, and a happier Kyrie.
This is where it gets crazy. I think that Kyrie re-signs and instead of him leaving to go with KD, KD gets sign and traded for Hayward. Then Anthony Davis becomes much more open to teaming up with them in Boston and the Celtics trade Brown/Tatum/Williams and salary for Davis.
In retrospect I am happy it didn’t happen. But a big 3 of Kyrie, KD, and Davis would have been really exciting to see. And the Pelicans with Jrue, Brown, Tatum, Zion, and RWIII would have been extremely fun to watch as well.
Extremely weak playoff year except for ya know that one team with Kevin Durant and Steph Curry
The Gordon Hayward injury was literally my first experience as a Boston sports fan. I moved to Massachusetts in the Fall of 2017 and had no real NBA allegiance. So I was excited to have a young, promising team to root for.
I was in my kitchen making food when I heard “oh my god Gordon Hayward has broken his leg” and I couldn’t believe it. Looking back it’s kinda crazy how the total failure to launch of the Kyrie-Hayward Celtics somehow led to the amazing run we had with the Jays.
Terry privacy bet against himself that game probably since we know he corruptly was caught in the betting scandal
Damn I had a write-up of this somewhere, idk if I’ll ever find it but essentially we win the 2018 Finals against Houston and then a butterfly effect from there
Edit - here it is!
Edit 2 - lmao re-reading this is so funny considering the Kawhi situation, it’s like in every timeline but 1 he gets the bag
Adam Silver is preparing to dissemble the league after the Celtics have won every championship sweeping every team in every postseason series since 2018.
Maybe we would have traded JB, and JT if were dumber, for another win now star (we would have pushed harder for AD).
What ifs aside for a sec, we were just simply robbed of watching Prime Gordon Hayward in green. I was so hyped when we signed him and obviously trading for Kyrie at the time. Fuck the basketball gods for that.
Yeah this is up there with Bias and Lewis.
Jaylen Brown probably gets traded much sooner
I honestly think about this more than I should…. Just crazy how it went down
Celtics win another championship.
JB does not get traded. Stevens was the coach when Hayward came back. He saw firsthand how players made no room for him and some players resented him being there. The leaks to the media were nonstop. Stevens is making sure Tatum will never have a locker room like that.
Probably win it all in 2019
Realistically? They probably sell a TONNNNN more jerseys to Irish whites in Charlestown. Otherwise it’s hard to say
Maaan I was at the game. It felt like someone turned off the heat when we all saw Hayward on the ground. Legitimately traumatizing if you were close enough I imagine (thank god I’m not rich)
They probably end up moving Brown and/or Tatum (probably Brown) due to the sheer volume of talent on that team. Hayward/Kyrie/Horford was an incredible trio and that team had so much depth. They could’ve packaged some of the younger guys (Brown, Rozier, etc) for really solid veterans to round out the roster. They probably make 2-3 finals if everyone is healthy, and to me have a better run than we eventually ended up having the last few years. The East was wide open at that time and they certainly beat Cleveland in 2018 if healthy. They were probably better than Toronto in 2019 or Miami in 2020 as well. It’s a gigantic “what if.”
It’s interesting. I don’t think the J’s development would have been hindered, but I think Kyrie still had a lot of growing up to do. It wasn’t until he crashed and burned in Brooklyn with KD that he became more of a we over me type player in Dallas.
Would any of that have kept these new owners from buying? No
They traded JB out bc they didn’t want to pay the backend of his contract
Jesus Christ.
I don’t think they win a chip with Kyrie/Hayward unless KD and Klay go down like they did in 2019, but in all likelihood, Jaylen would have been traded much sooner, since he was pretty raw, and wouldn’t have had enough PT to really develop
Tatum probably not a Celtic today tbh he said he didn’t like the idea of playing behind him in the rotation and when he got hurt it opened a lot for him. Plus it helped him not want to go to LA since lonzo was a bust and the lakers probably would’ve wanted to try to get him in the building.
Education is Reformed
Maybe this Bill Chisholm guy never buys the team and trades Jaylen Brown
What if…..Reggie Lewis? Len Bias?
Nothing that team never wins anything