I probably wouldn’t be the only one to think that the Utah Jazz may have selected Butler University’s Gordon Hayward a tad high with the #9 overall pick in the 2010 NBA Draft. While his outstanding play during this year’s NCAA Tournament undoubtedly helped to improve his draft stock, teams should always be a little cautious of selecting a mid-major player in the lottery. I case anyone missed it, Haywood almost singlehandedly led the upstart Bulldogs program to their first national title in school history, if his last second shot hadn’t rimmed out as time expired.
Hayward hasn’t gotten off to an inspiring start in the NBA Summer leagues since in 5 games in Orlando, he averaged a very mediocre 10 points, 3 rebounds, and 1.4 assists, even though he showed a few glimpses of his immense potential. It will be almost impossible to live up to the high expectations that some draft pronosticators had predicted for him. I mean, some so called experts unbelievably called him the “next Larry Bird.” I’m not going out on a limb by saying that is a bit overvaluing Hayward as a player.
While hopefully Hayward proves me wrong and has a great NBA career, he has already chosen to emulate a different NBA Hall of Famer as evidence of some video of him pulling off Hakeem Olajuwon’s signature “Dream Shake” move in Summer League action. I know, I know it’s not exactly like the Dream used to do it since he used to take a turn-around jumper after the move, but it brought back memories of the former Dream Teamer none the less.
Allen Moll has been a lifelong NBA and NCAA College Basketball fan who watches and studies games religiously, and coaches youth basketball in his native Lehigh Valley region of Pennsylvania. Allen also provides content to Bleacherreport.com, Upperdeckblog.com, in addition to being a tenured NBA and NCAA columnist for TheHoopDoctors.com.
