Boston Celtics: Gordon Hayward has been Al Horford 2.0 for this year’s C’s — a deeper look

Reminiscent of Al Hordford in years past, Gordon Hayward has blossomed into the efficient, versatile, do-it-all play-maker that has quietly been crucial to the Boston Celtics success.

There are many things to nitpick about this otherwise talented Boston Celtics squad, and one of the most nagging concerns has been the play of one Gordon Hayward.

Yet the biggest criticisms of Hayward so far this season have been primarily economic, not performance-based. His play on the court has been phenomenal, and frankly critical to the Celtics’ success this season.

It’s the ‘other’ things people have been concerned about: his injury history, his fit alongside Jayson Tatum and Jaylen Brown, his looming extension in the offseason, and his value as a trade asset moving forward. However, none of these things take into account how he’s actually performing, which is mostly without valid criticism.

His availability, which is arguably the most important stat of all, has been down due a few nagging injuries. Armchair doctors on twitter love to talk about “weak bones” and toughness and all that, but the reality is that injuries are largely a random phenomenon.

Everyone gets injured, it’s just a fact of the NBA, and Hayward just has had a particularly bad string of luck.

The other criticism is entirely out of his control: personnel. The Boston Celtics have three excellent wings.

It’s nobody’s fault but management that they have such an abundance of talent at that particular position. And with two rising young stars in Brown and Tatum, many believe that Hayward is redundant, and that salary would be better allocated to a big man or something else.

However, when you look at Hayward’s performance on the court, he has been perhaps the Celtics’ most consistent and reliable player (when he’s on the court, of course) and has been a critical factor in the team’s success thus far. He’s playing a complimentary and versatile brand of basketball that has allowed his teammates to shine.

His role offensively this season reminds me of that occupied by Al Horford for the previous three seasons. Horford was the steady hand on an otherwise erratic offense.  When our young wings were still getting their sea legs in the NBA, Hayward himself was recovering from injury, and you never knew what to expect on a given night from a certain mercurial point guard. He was an excellent passer from the top of the key, hit his open threes to stretch the defense, and was a versatile pick and roll threat.

He did it all.

He did what needed to be done to win, and that often wasn’t pretty or glamorous or showed up in the box score. And, much like Hayward, Horford was subjected to doubters who just looked at his box score stats (and most likely only his box score stats) and wondered why we paid him $30 million a year.

Although the way in which Hayward exudes this steady hand is a little different, the results are the same: a skilled veteran playmaker and scorer you can run your offense through. Hayward’s brand is more in line with his versatility and advanced skill set on the wing, as opposed to Horford’s more big-man oriented presence.

Hayward is competent as a pick and roll ball handler and in running dribble hand-off action (much like Horford did.) And he is Boston’s most efficient and effective isolation scorer at a whopping 1.27 points per possession, which is good for the 97th percentile league wide. In other words, an undeniably elite level.

For a young, enthusiastic team, this steady hand is crucial. For all of the promise Tatum and Brown have shown they are still trying to find sustained, night in and night out consistency, and Kemba Walker will routinely get the toughest assignments every night, which warrants some relief.

They need this stabilizing presence to help smooth those rough patches and to give their other stars a break. A player that can mold to the circumstances of the game, and give the team whatever they might need at that time.

Hayward is that guy.

He doesn’t need touches to be effective. His usage is fourth on the team, behind Walker, Tatum, and Brown.

Yet he’s managing to have one of the most efficient seasons of his career. In short, he doesn’t require All-Star level usage rates to play at an All-Star caliber level.

He is also a tactical chameleon, able to thrive alongside anyone. Lineup data shows that three of four of the Boston Celtics best 5-man lineups include Hayward. He is a versatile and flexible piece that fits nicely into every unit.

The fact is that the Boston Celtics are categorically better with him on the floor, and it would be foolish to ignore this fact.

I think a lot of the criticism leveled at Hayward is perception; we had this idea of him as a player coming in from Utah, and due to unfortunate circumstances that player never really materialized.

However, that doesn’t mean that he’s a dud, or that we need to ship him off for a big man, or that he’s somehow hampering the growth of our young core.

If anything, Gordon Hayward is sacrificing the most of anybody on the Celtics. He could be demanding more touches, more minutes, and a more prominent role in the offense. Instead, he continues to play the kind of basketball that leads to shared team success, regardless of what his stat line looks like at the end of the night.

Much like Horford, his value doesn’t always show up in the box score. But it’s showing up in the standings, which ultimately matters above everything else.