I agree, people on this forum make Hayward into the next Larry Bird. Yes, he improved greatly over the last two weeks of the season, but the Jazz were completely out of the race, we only had 8 players on some of the games, and there was no one left at SG. I can't imagine Hayward ever averaging more than 12 PPG.
Two weeks? No, two months. He led the league in 3pt % after February first. Sure, he didn't take some ridiculous amount, but he was more than efficient and more often than not took the best shot available or gave the ball up if they had a better one. He made great decisions the last few months, did an excellent job of staying in front of his man on D, and didn't look like the scared puppy that he was through January. He put on some muscle, improved his footwork, and did some pretty great things with the ball when he penetrated, whether it was getting himself to the basket or setting up a teammate. Sure, he still made plenty of mistakes, but he's a rookie. No, I don't want him bringing the ball down the court on a regular basis, but he has excellent court vision and is becoming very versatile with and without the ball. Nobody is saying he's going to be one of the 50 greatest players of all time, or that he's going to be a Hall of Famer, but he's shown flashes of being a VERY good player.
As for the SG-SF thing and Hayward being designated as nothing but a shooting guard, why? Ideally, we get a 2-3 rotation that's four or five guys deep so we can bring different players in for situational purposes. I'm absolutely on the starting Elder at the 2 bandwagon, but there's no reason to believe that we can't play him at both positions in the right circumstances. It's all about match-ups and situational substitutions. I think Ty is a smart enough guy to realize that, so having a few different players for a few different situations. Nothing wrong with drafting a guy like Thompson who can come in off the bench and hit some shots, or a guy like Singleton who can come in and be a lock down defender in a situation where Elder or whoever our starting 3 is can't handle their man. Having specialty players off the bench to come in and help your starters when an aspect of their game isn't up to par is exactly what championship contending teams do. As for Thompson not being clutch...who cares? There are only a handful of players who are, and more often than not they're starters and that's why they're in at the end of the game. Thompson isn't going to be playing the last five minutes of a game for a playoff team, so let him watch from the bench and study, maybe he'll learn from the situation. There's a handful of worthy guys at the 12 spot (Singleton, Jimmer, Thompson, Burks, Hamilton, crossing my fingers for a Biyombo or Leonard to fall), but they more than likely aren't going to be All-Stars. Draft someone that you think can be a good role player, someone that fills a need, and be happy that you've just taken another step in the rebuilding process, and hopefully towards being able to put a team on the floor who can compete with the best.
