The season was lost before it began for Gordon Hayward in a Boston Celtics uniform, but his story of resilience became the face of the team.
In a season that was presumed over just five minutes into the season turned into a season that Boston Celtics fans will never forget.
One of the things that made the 2017-18 team special was the way they were able to overcome injuries, primarily the one suffered by Gordon Hayward.
From the very moment the prize free-agent star went down with a gruesome lower leg injury, the excitement and anticipation that surrounded the Celtics evaporated as quickly as it was inflated when Hayward wrote he was coming to Boston in The Player’s Tribune.
Suddenly, the fireworks fans were promised dissipated in a heap of smoke…and tears.
The pained look on the face of Gordon Hayward as well as the horrified look on the players on that Quicken Loans Arena court that night will forever be memorable.
It was over….so we thought.
But, a team down a star found a way to galvanize themselves to make it just a few minutes and a lot of missed shots away from the NBA Finals.
New stars emerged and a coach named Brad Stevens took another leap towards the top of the NBA coaching mountain. With that, the silver lining is that Gordon Hayward will be added to this team.
Through months of rebab, Hayward underwent a minor surgery this week to remove hardware from a healed bone in his tibia.
According to Celtics president of basketball operations Danny Ainge, the procedure will not limit Hayward’s ability to return healthy for next season. Along with the return of a healthy Kyrie Irving, there is a lot to be excited about next season mostly because of what this team went through and built this past season.
Although he only contributed 2 points in a Boston Celtics uniform, here are 3 ways Gordon Hayward inspired the 2017-18 season.
Strength leads to resilience
The one word that defined the 2017-18 Boston Celtics was resilience. The way the team battled back and didn’t give up on the season following Gordon Hayward’s injury was the main ingredient to a successful season.
Glancing back at that night, we should’ve all known better. From the horror on Jaylen Brown’s face to the way Al Horford huddled everyone together while Hayward was sitting on the court with his foot turned the wrong way shown a new team bonding together before our very eyes.
That same night, the Celtics battled back down double digits against the Cleveland Cavaliers to nearly pullout an improbable comeback win.
They were supposed to be out of it, so decimated by the Hayward injury that they would in no way even reach .500. But, they took the injury as motivation, which fueled an early season 16-game winning streak. The team also heard what all the pundits and analysts were saying following the loss of Gordon Hayward.
Yes, they took it personally because there was still a lot of talent remaining on the team, including five-time All-Star Kyrie Irving who explained how the injury impacted the young Boston Celtics.
"“Gordon’s a huge piece, and when you lose him, I think all hell broke loose a little bit, like, ‘What are they going to look like?’,” Irving said back in March, via Adam Himmelsbach. “And a lot of guys took that personal, and they wanted to come out and prove something.”"
They proved a lot of people wrong during their journey to Game 7 of the Eastern Conference Finals. Even with eventually losing Irving, the team believed because they saw how Gordon Hayward battled back in his rebab and believed in his personal comeback.
The strength he showed by just being positive throughout his rehab seemed to parallel on a team that continuously battled back when the rest of the NBA world felt they were too wounded.
That dude named Kyrie
Kyrie Irving was going to be the man in Boston even if Gordon Hayward didn’t go down in the first minutes of the 2017-18 NBA season.
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In a way, he had a different amount of pressure put on him than Hayward. Irving was the disgruntled star who basically forced his way out of Cleveland and was traded for fan favorite Isaiah Thomas. All eyes were already on him, but when Hayward went down, those eyes intensified.
"“Losing Gordon was just, a few more eyes on me that I had to be aware of,” Irving said back in March, via NBC Sports Boston. “It’s tough because it is an adjustment. Coming into a new environment and you kind of expect this to be the team, and one big piece goes down. You have to figure it out from there.”"
When healthy, Kyrie Irving did figure it out. With a bigger load on his shoulders, he adapted to Brad Stevens team basketball and led the Boston Celtics in scoring, while playing team defense and displaying leadership on young players like Jaylen Brown, Jayson Tatum and Terry Rozier.
While Hayward’s injury was devastating, it did allow Kyrie Irving the opportunity grow in the Boston spotlight as the superstar of the team. It also inserted a hunger in the five-time All Star to win a championship in Boston.
The Boston Celtics entered the season with two Top 3 picks with high ceilings. The team ended the season with those two players extending towards those ceilings quicker than expected and that can be attributed to the injury of Gordon Hayward.
Boston Celtics
What both Jaylen Brown and Jayson Tatum did this season were major reasons why the 2017-18 version of the Celtics came within a quarter of playing the Golden State Warriors in the NBA Finals.
The weight that were placed on their shoulders due to the injury showcased each players maturity and the range of talent each player has. While Brown was expected to make a leap from his rookie season to his second year in the NBA, the level in which he made that leap was due to his growing confidence throughout the season.
Entering the 2017-18 campaign, Jaylen Brown said he was coming, and the amount of minutes that opened up for him due to Hayward going down allowed him to showcase his growth, particularly in his outside shot and defensive effort.
As far as this year’s No. 3 overall pick Tatum, the injury threw him in the fire immediately and he responded. Not only did he prove he is the real deal in the regular season, he stepped up during the team’s playoff run and established himself as a star on the rise.
Next: The 5 faces of the Boston Celtics: The coach, the stars and the future
Overall, while Gordon Hayward’s injury was devastating at the time, it may just have given the Boston Celtics a stronger chance to win their 18th championship in 2019.