re: Let's talk about Jaxson Hayes' 3

Yeah, I’ve always seen a lot of AD in Jaxson tbh. Late bloomer, top percentile athletic profile, great hands, great touch. The only thing that’s really different is the expectations. AD was expected to be great and our entire organizational goal was to make sure he was great, bc at that point we zero other talent. Currently we have BI and Zion, so we aren’t necessarily looking to develop Jaxson into an AD, but instead we are trying to have him be more of a new age Tyson Chandler, because that’s all we really need him to be to be a core foundational piece.

I will say, I think Jaxson actually finishes a little bit better than AD on lobs and dunks. What separated AD offensive skillset wise from Hayes early on were his layups and 3-10 ft touch shots. Zion is obviously better than AD on layups, but he doesn’t quite have the 3-10 ft floater game down and neither does Hayes. Hayes went 4-12 yesterday and a lot if the misses were from that in between area. Based on other plays he has made, I am under the impression that he will generally be better than 4-12 on those types of shots, the more reps he gets.

However, when you have Zion layups, Ingram mid ranges, Hayes lobs and Lonzo 3’s at your disposal, I’m not 100% sure the coaching staff is going to want Hayes to shoot enough of those in between shots in game to actually get enough reps to be as elite as AD was at them when he was in new orleans.

But the potential is there in my eyes and when our main guys are out, I don’t think it’s a horrible idea for Hayes to be more of an offensive hub for this team to see exactly what he can do when given the opportunity without fear of ending a possession in a less ideal look than we’d get if Zion or BI are on the court and subsequently getting bitched out by van gundy for not getting the best shot we could in the possession. We’ve seen what Starter/Green Light NAW can do. I don’t see the harm in seeing what No Conscience Jaxson can and can’t do even if it results in a few ugly outings.

So we rolling with

Lonzo/NAW/BI/Zion/Hayes

That is a long big lineup.

Something that I just noticed while playing around on Cleaning the Glass:

When Hayes is on the floor with Kira, we have a point differential of +9.2 points per 100 possessions (sample size of 421 possessions).

When Jaxson was on the floor with Redick this season, we were in the 3rd percentile, at -15.9 points per 100 possessions (sample size of 424 possessions).

Lineups with Hayes and Bledsoe are almost as bad, at -10.0 points per 100 -- that's in the 9th percentile (sample size of 449 possessions).

Jaxson's on/off numbers don't have a huge swing when he's on the floor with Zion, NAW, Hart, Lonzo, or BI -- they are all about normal. The big positive has been with Kira, and the big negatives are when he's been out there with Redick and Bledsoe.

I would assume that the advantage of Kira/Jaxson lineups is that Kira has the speed to be a dangerous threat in the P&R. When Kira turns the corner around the screen, the opposing big has to help so much that it leaves Jaxson open for the pass or the put-back dunk. There's a lot of long-term potential in that action.