How is Gordon Hayward adjusting to life with OKC Thunder? 'Just trying to keep building'
Before this past deadline, Gordon Hayward had never been traded.
That’s 15 seasons of uncommon consistency. A level of control that feels more like an asset than an occurrence, more choice than incidental. Until it happens. Then Hayward, who’ll be 34 years old before the end of the month, finds himself on one of the NBA’s young juggernauts — an Oklahoma City Thunder team speeding toward lofty goals at a pace he’s only hoped to keep up with.
He’s suddenly teammates with players who knew him growing up as that Gordon Hayward, the one who starred in Utah and just barely overlapped with a baby-faced Rudy Gobert. A budding prospect who tangoed in the midrange. A bright spot for a mostly middling era in Utah otherwise defined by Al Jefferson and Derrick Favors and that one Jeremy Evans dunk contest.
Some Thunder players might’ve already been into basketball when Hayward’s Butler legend was born.
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“Some of them are young enough where, because I was in Charlotte, I hadn’t even played against them,” Hayward said.
It’s been a challenging shift in reality. Because of Hayward’s acclimation with the NBA’s closest contender to puberty; because of what he left behind in Charlotte as a victim of the NBA’s trade turnstile; because he once was who he was and some semblance of those expectations continue to follow him.
It was different in Charlotte. As youthful as that team was — calling jewelers to hotel rooms, whipping neon sports cars — it was barreling toward nothing. OKC, currently a half game out of first place in the West standings, is approaching something.
Questions have swirled about how Hayward will maximize himself and slip seamlessly in with that vision. Hayward is still early in the process of answering those questions himself.
“I deal with internal expectations more than anything,” Hayward said. “So I wouldn't know what anyone's saying about how I've been doing or how I've been performing. I know how I feel. And (I’m) still trying to get acclimated to the team and still trying to get my legs under me and get healthy. I think coach Mark (Daigneault) said it best. He wants me to be playing my best ball in April. And so that's why I'm just trying to keep building.
“Certainly it's a different role, too. Isn’t something that I'm used to, so just trying to do the best with what I'm given.”
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Daigneault, accumulating questions of his expectations for Hayward, noted that it’s key to watch Hayward’s fit unfold. Through 11 games, Hayward has averaged 4.0 points, 2.0 assists, 3.1 rebounds in 16.8 minutes. He’s shot 39% from the field, 57.1% from 3 on 0.6 attempts per game.
His minutes have ranged from clumps of airballs and being targeted on defense to necessary spacing, hope-inspiring catch-and-shoot 3s and a three-game stretch where he’s averaged five assists.
He’s still searching for his legs, in hopes they might be good to him after missing 27 consecutive games in his 15th season. He’s been seemingly passive at times, trying his best to not disrupt what Shai Gilgeous-Alexander might cook or what Jalen Williams might create.
He’s looked off 3s to swing across the perimeter. Perhaps he’ll settle in at a point, pulling more 3s than he has, leaning into the level of efficiency he’s mostly retained. Until then, he’ll probe and pick his spots accordingly, citing his aggression in trying to facilitate in recent games.
Underneath everything, Hayward’s life is distant. His family is across the country. He’s quietly swallowed how much he’s left behind, hoping to make it work while busy blending in with a different, ambitious set of professional rugrats.
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“It is difficult being away from them and being away from my wife and trying to fit in with the guys here,” Hayward said. “This is part of the NBA, though. I've been around enough to know that's how it works. This is the first time I've had to deal with it. But you're in it long enough, and eventually it happens.”
It might take weeks to become truly acclimated. For Hayward’s piece to fit the puzzle the way it was initially intended. Nothing more, nothing less.
Among the tools to help him reach that, he’s got the perspective to see what’s brewing in Oklahoma City. To see the moving parts and the essential ingredients. To know his role in all of that. To know what it’ll take to get help lift them further.
“They're competing,” Hayward said. “They’re never giving up on plays. And that's the biggest thing that a lot of people have said to me watching the games like my friends and family. Like, this team just doesn't stop.”
This article originally appeared on Oklahoman: OKC Thunder fitting Gordon Hayward into rotation during playoff race
