Los Angeles Lakers superstar Anthony Davis has been extremely outspoken about his desire to play next to a center more often. While Davis understands why it is beneficial to the Lakers for him to play at center, he prefers not to have to bang against the NBA’s most physical bigs every single minute, night after night.
Unfortunately, the Lakers remain thin at center with Jaxson Hayes being the only other true center available right now as Christian Wood recovers from injury. Head coach JJ Redick has experimented with some lineups including both Davis and Hayes and the energetic big man is a big fan of those minutes with the Lakers superstar.
“I really like it a lot because when that happens, I can focus on just crashing and playing in the dunker and setting ball screens because I know AD has already been in the whole quarter so I got to pick up a little bit for him,” Hayes said after the Lakers’ preseason contest against the Golden State Warriors. “Also, it’s just that he brings all of the extra attention so it’s like, I can sit in the dunker and kind of get easy buckets whenever he’s in. So I like it a lot.”
The best players in the league make life easier for their teammates and that is exactly what Hayes loves about playing with Davis. As he said, Davis on the floor means he can focus solely on a couple of things that he does very well and bring that trademark energy he is known for.
Something else that is helping Hayes has been the consistency of the minutes and rotations that he is seeing in the preseason so far.
“I like it a lot,” Hayes added. “I feel like for role guys like me, it’s all about just getting in a rhythm, coming in and getting in a rhythm. I feel like with that first group, it’s nice and easy to come in and get a rhythm with them.”
Role players are extremely important to the success of a team and getting the best out of them is crucial. So far Hayes is happy with his role which should lead to better production. And if he can help take some of the load off of Davis’ shoulders that only further benefits the Lakers as a team.
Lakers’ Jaxson Hayes comfortable with JJ Redick’s schemes & terminology
Consistency and continuity is very beneficial for players to grow and succeed, but Jaxson Hayes has had the opposite of that. JJ Redick is Hayes’ fifth coach in his six NBA seasons, but thankfully for the center his time as a teammate with the new Lakers coach is helping him with these new schemes.
“It’s definitely a little bit of difficulty but luckily for me, I feel like JJ when they came, they used most of the same terminology me and JJ used in New Orleans,” Hayes said. “Also Coach [Bob Beyer] was with us in New Orleans for our defense so I feel like with this coaching staff it has been pretty easy just because I already knew most of the stuff with them because we’ve ran it before. But stuff like that is always gonna take time, that’s why you got to take this preseason and use it to get ready and get ramped up for the year.”
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