Jaxson Hayes has effectively been out of the Los Angeles Lakers rotation for much of his fifth NBA campaign. Between Nov. 29 and Jan. 28, he was a DNP coach’s decision in nine games, played more than 10 minutes five times and more than 15 minutes only twice.
In the five weeks prior to Jan. 29, he reached that 10-minute mark only one time, fouling out in 13 minutes against the Phoenix Suns on Jan. 11.
Hayes was not meant to be a big-minute player when the Lakers brought him over from the New Orleans Pelicans in free agency this offseason. However, he was supposed to provide a little bit of relief for Anthony Davis at the center position. But undisciplined defense has forced him to the back of the bench, until recently. In the Lakers last three games, he is averaging 10.3 points and six rebounds per game while playing 24 minutes per night.
The Lakers center was instrumental in a huge upset victory over the Boston Celtics on Thursday, when he had 16 points and 10 rebounds in 34 minutes as a starter. He did all of this without committing a foul. And that has been an area of focus for the big man since he was removed from the rotation, via Spectrum SportsNet:
“For me, it was really just keeping my hands back and showing my hands. We’ve been working on that, me and coaches have, as funny as that sounds, in my individual workouts. We’ll sit there with three coaches driving and me just standing there with verticality and showing my hands, and then do it a bunch of pump fakes and just making sure I stay down and show my hands. So it was really just practicing that with the coaches for the past month or so. That was like a big topic for coach on why I was taken out of the rotation earlier in the year so I just wanted to make sure I did do a good job on it today.”
Hayes said that his work with the stay ready group allowed him to be effective when called upon even without getting significant practice time:
“Just me and coaches and the other guys like Skylar Mays, Max Lewis, those guys, we all play in the stay-ready group, 5-on-5, 4-on-4, up and down so we still get our conditioning in. Just coming in and getting like two workouts a day, coming back in at night and getting another workout in, lifting every day just to make sure my body is physically ready for when I come back in the rotation. And mentally ready too, just watching a whole lot of film to see where I can impact the game. I feel like me getting the DNPs helped me a lot because I was able to sit there and just watch and just see where I can help out our team win some more games.”
The Lakers needed every bit of Hayes’ production against the Celtics, and it was likely huge for the coaching staff to see such major in-season improvement from the fifth-year center. If he can continue to produce at this level, he could quickly find himself back in the regular rotation, even when Davis returns.
Darvin Ham praises collective effort from Lakers
While there were plenty of strong individual performances against the Celtics, what Lakers head coach Darvin Ham liked the most from his group was the collective effort without LeBron James and Davis in the lineup.
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