https://youtu.be/P8B4EH69TQs
Phew. For a while there, a long while there, I was afraid that the whole season would go by without me having the chance to make a Killian Hayes highlight video. Imagine the seventh overall pick not getting a rookie-season DTB highlight video even though I was willing and ready to drop everything and make the video should the need arise. That would have been a tragedy on par with some of the great tragedies in human history, like the sinking of the Titanic, the eruption of Mt. Vesuvius, Nate Wolters getting cut from the Bucks to sign old-ass Kenyon Martin for absolutely no god damn reason, the 1925 tri-state tornado, and me getting literally dunked on during a pickup game.
In fairness to Hayes, he was injured for a huge chunk of the season, so he didn’t have the in-game reps necessary to accumulate stats worthy of highlightage. Still, his previous high in points was just twelve. I was definitely expecting more than that, injury or no injury. And now I’ve received the exact thing I was expecting. I don’t feel happiness necessarily, just relief. I mean, I can’t let Saddiq Bey have like six highlight videos while Hayes gets none. That violates the concept of “rightness” that is central to human existence.
This performance from Hayes was marred by his seven turnovers. It was also marred by the fact that three of his assists were to Isaiah Stewart for three-pointers (Stewart doesn’t make a lot of three-pointers, so Hayes won’t always be able to get assists from that source). But whatever imperfections were present in Hayes’ game here were outshined by his 21 points on a variety of scoring moves. Now we just need to figure out a way for Jahlil Okafor to score 21 points this season and I can die a happy man.