Hayward rarin’ to go
Ordeal of ankle injury took its toll
Gordon Hayward started playing 5-on-5 basketball approximately two weeks ago, and now talks about 100 percent health as if he’s about to touch the peak of Mt. Everest.
The Celtics forward, after missing last season due to a gruesome opening night ankle injury, sounded that hopeful following another morning workout.
This time, opening night sounds like a given.
“One hundred percent I expect to be out there,” Hayward said of the start of the season. “This is what this time is for is for me to kind of find my groove a little bit. You can do all the drills you want, all the cardio, the jumping (and) agility stuff. But there’s nothing like playing 5-on-5 so when I play out here with my teammates, when we get into practice situations, that’s going to be the best, playing in the preseason games, that will be the best work I can get.”
The Celtics reached the Eastern Conference finals with Hayward, Kyrie Irving and Daniel Theis all recovering from various surgeries. As predicted by president of basketball operations Danny Ainge, Hayward and Irving both had active Augusts, the latter scrimmaging with Kevin Durant, James Harden and Kelly Olynyk in Florida.
Hayward’s own recovery from several surgeries on his ankle has been long and, thanks to the success of the team while he was sequestered in rehab, isolating. He admitted following the initial surgery last October to experiencing some darkly emotional moments. As such, Hayward has been forced to recover on a mental as well as a physical level.
“Especially right when it happened, there definitely are some dark days, some days where you just don’t know if you’re going to be the same player, kind of what’s on the horizon, what’s the future look like,” he said. “I think having a family helped me get through that. Having my faith helped me get through that as well. It puts things into perspective for you.
“And you have to find the joy in the little things of rehab. Doing different drills that you’re doing in rehab, like picking up marbles and different things like that, trying to compete, and find some sort of happiness. Just being around the facility when the guys were in town, joking with the staff members, different things like that really kind of kept my spirits up.”
Hayward received another emotional boost from these recent scrimmages with teammates.
“There have been points in time where I get to do different things, like the first time that I was able to get out of the boot and walk normally, then the first time I was able to jog,” he said. “I hit a point in time where then I had to do a second surgery and that kind of brought me back down a little bit. But after that it’s been amazing with just the different steps that in each step I get some joy. So now we’re kind of at that final step of playing 5-on-5. I enjoy practicing, I enjoy putting in the work because last year I wasn’t able to.
“It was the most difficult thing I’ve done,” he said. “I’ve been very blessed that I haven’t had an injury like this in my basketball career, and so to have to sit and watch and not be with the team and just do rehab every day was extremely difficult for me. I’ve told multiple people the hardest part of this whole process has been the mental challenge, having to just fight through not being able to play and do the tedious task of just the rehab and that whole process is something I don’t hope to have to go through again.”
Training camp, which begins Sept. 24 with media day, should wash away much of the tedium. Though Hayward admittedly still lacks the full explosion and cutting ability of his pre-injury self, that part should follow as the basketball part of his recovery takes hold.
“I would say I’m basically 100 percent. There’s certain things that I think are going to take time even if I was 100 percent healthy,” he said. “I’m not 100 percent as far as basketballwise, just because I haven’t played in a year. I’m trying to figure those things out. The last step for me as far as from a physical standpoint is a little explosion, that little last juice bounce that you get. So that’s going to take me the longest time, but like I said, for the most part I feel very good.
“Feeling really good right now. Had two weeks now of playing full-court basketball, 5-on-5, pretty much no restrictions, still trying to keep a progression of how much time and how much load I’m putting on that ankle,” said Hayward. “But for the most part, I’m feeling very, very well, just excited to be out there. It’s so much fun being able to play again, and play with my teammates, and using these past two weeks and the next month or so will be good to kind of get back into the game, feel the rhythm, the timing, different things like that, but it feels pretty good.”
Hayward said he still hasn’t watched video of his injury, though the image occasionally invades his space on a social media platform like Instagram. But as another sign of his growing confidence, Hayward hasn’t had second thoughts about landing on his left ankle, or planting it for a cut.
“I haven’t had any fear as far as cutting and jumping,” he said. “It’s just working my way back into a groove, finding the different rhythms, the timings of the game. I played four times 5-on-5 after not playing for a year. That part is going to take some time and just figuring out those timings, those things over the years when you just play, it just comes naturally. When you take a long break like that, you have to kind of find it again. That’s what I’m using this time for. I’ll use preseason and then I’ll be rolling.”