Late in his second NBA season, Killian Hayes finished what amounted to his first. He didn't play his 82nd career game until March 21st.
His second season began, in essence, on March 23rd with 13 points, eight rebounds and five assists in a win over the Hawks. A few games later, Hayes scored a career-high 26 with eight assists and seven rebounds in a win over the Pacers. Hey, the Pistons might have something here.
Dwane Casey moved Hayes into a bench role midway through the season and Hayes, while hesitant about the demotion at first, responded by playing some of the better basketball of his (very, very) young career.
"He was struggling early," Casey said Tuesday on the Stoney & Jansen Show. "I was on him hard about just making the right plays, the right reads. It was a tough conversation when I brought him and told him I was going to move him to the second unit. He thought about it a little bit, but then once he embraced it, he flourished. And I thought it was the best thing for him, a 19-year-old coming in (last season) who only hit his 82nd game late this year, so basically this was his first year.
"It took the pressure off him. He was able to have the ball in the second unit, and there’s no shame in that. He can be an excellent backup or secondary ball-handler, and there’s a lot of guys around the NBA like that, and in the history of the NBA, who are successful. And like I tell guys all the time, it’s not who starts the game, it’s who’s in there to close the game. Who’s the closer?"
Hayes has a long way to go to become a closer for the Pistons, who already have theirs in Cade Cunningham. But his progression in the second half of the season was important in the scope of his career and in the team's rebuild. He averaged 7.8 points and 4.8 assists over his final 33 games after being moved to the bench, compared to 6.2 points and 3.6 assists in his first 33. He also played solid defense throughout the season.
The next step for Hayes, who doesn't turn 21 until July, is fixing the most glaring hole in his game: three-point shooting. And that starts in earnest this summer. While Hayes declined to reveal a specific number of shots he'll be taking each day this offseason after conducting his exit interviews with Casey and GM Troy Weaver on Monday -- whatever it takes to improve, he said -- Casey laid out his challenge for Hayes on Tuesday.
"I told him yesterday, he’s gotta get out and shoot 1,000 shots a day during the summer," Casey said. "That’s gotta be his main priority, because defensively, he’s a stopper. He can get down and guard anybody. He came along with that swagger defensively at the end of the year.
"But the one thing he’s gotta do, especially playing next to Cade, he’s gotta be able to knock down shots when he’s off the ball, because Cade is going to see double teams, he’s going to see a crowd. So the kick-out has gotta be almost automatic. He’s gotta get his three point shooting in the high 30’s and low 40’s at some point. It’s not going to happen over night, but that’s where he’s gotta get his three point shooting."
Through 92 NBA games, Hayes is shooting 26.8 percent from three. He made more than two threes in just one game this season, and didn't hit a single one in 33 games. That has to change, in a rather dramatic way, for Hayes to push his ceiling higher and live up to expectations as a former seventh overall pick. And he knows it.
"Especially when cade’s handling the ball, that’s when the shooting aspect comes in," Hayes said Monday. "That’s why this summer I’m focused on catch and shoot and playing off the ball."
Related
The Pistons, as a team, weren't much better than Hayes from behind the arc. They ranked 29th in the NBA in three-point shooting at 32.6 percent, another facet of the club that demands improvement. Casey called it "the most important thing we have to do" this offseason and said it's "going to be a priority, whoever we bring in."
"We either gotta continue to improve or continue to add to our roster three-point shooting," Casey said. "You gotta change with the game and stay ahead of the curve. You got to have as many three-point shooting threats as you can possibly have to compete in today’s game."
Isaiah Stewart could eventually be one of them. Casey encouraged the second-year center to take more threes this season, and Stewart wound up connecting on 32.6 percent. Casey said he developed Jonas Valanciunas in the same way with the Raptors "and now he’s one of the best three-point shooting centers in the NBA."
"So it’s going to come for Isaiah Stewart," said Casey. "He’ll be a threat from out there, which is going to really, really help our team be able to space the floor."
Other highlights from Casey's interview on 97.1 The Ticket:
On the Rookie of the Year case for Cunningham: "The thing about it is, he has the ‘it’ factor. No disrespect to the other players that are involved, whether it’s Scottie Barnes playing with basically two All-Stars in (Pascal) Siakam and (Fred) Van Fleet (in Toronto) and then Mobley in Cleveland playing with two All-Stars. He's playing with two big time players, which makes life easier for him. Where in our situation, basically Cade is our guy. He is the guy. It was one of those things where he was getting his numbers and producing being the guy, where the other guys didn’t have the load to carry. So that would be my main argument. And the talent level. I just think Cade, basketball wise, is one of those guys who sees the floor, he’s mature for his age and again, he carried us, especially after the All-Star break when he hit his stride."
On the growth of Saddiq Bey: "This year he comes in as an NBA starter and it was a different role for him, and to begin the year I thought he was a little tight, felt the pressure. As the year went on, he grew and got his confidence and then he propelled once he had that 50-point game. And I told him after, 'The league is going to look at you different.' And he handled it well, the special attention. He had a couple of off-nights, but he can be that guy for us, an outside guy who can space the floor."