Boston Celtics: Pros and cons of Gordon Hayward as sixth man

Con: His future confidence is at stake

Say Hayward doesn’t play particularly well in the postseason. Say instead of opening new doors for Celtics wings Jaylen Brown and Jayson Tatum, he closes them by taking possessions and shots away from the developing young Celtics.

This is not to say this is a particularly likely scenario, and playing well for Hayward is kind of a subjective term. There is a baseline in how he should contribute in terms of points-assists-rebounds, but a player like Hayward that affects the game in ways that don’t exactly show up in the box score is hard to judge.

However, should the Celtics fail to function well as an offense with Kyrie Irving off the floor (who will play a large sum of minutes in the coming postseason), that will be an indictment on Hayward.

If the Celtics fail to make adjustments to offenses that don’t revolve around a single dominant big man, that will be a partial indictment on Hayward. If Boston can’t piece together a reasonably effective and efficient offense and defense with him as a key player on the court, that will not only be an indictment on Hayward individually, but the system built around him with the intention to put him in a position to succeed.

If things go south this coming postseason with Hayward in a backup role, this could seriously damage his confidence that he could be the player he previously was. The Celtics do not exactly need Hayward to be as good as he was in Utah, but they need him to play with that confidence, swagger and “mamba mentality” again if they hope to be a contending team with him in the mix.