Butler’s Hayward makes 1 final draft push for hometown Pacers

Hayward finishes draft workouts in hometown

INDIANAPOLIS — Gordon Hayward felt right at home auditioning for Larry Bird and the Indiana Pacers.

After traveling to 10 cities, Hayward woke up at his parents’ place in nearby Brownsburg, hopped in his own car and made the 20-minute drive to Conseco Fieldhouse.

He’s hoping his first job comes the same short commute.

“It would be a dream come true to play for the Pacers,” Hayward said Monday. “I’d be close to home, close to my friends and family. Sometimes people say it would be more pressure, but I don’t see that as a negative.”

Certainly not when virtually every big moment in Hayward’s basketball career has occurred within these city limits.

Two years ago, his buzzer-beating lay-in gave Brownsburg High School the 4A state basketball title in the same building where he worked out for Bird. He brought home the Horizon League’s freshman of the year and player of the year awards over the last two seasons while attending school just six miles down the road at Butler. In April, Hayward had two chances in the closing seconds to beat Duke in the national title game at Lucas Oil Stadium, within walking distance of Conseco. But he missed both shots.

The 6-foot-9 sophomore is making one exception Thursday night.

Hayward will take his parents, his girlfriend, his sister and her boyfriend to New York City for the NBA draft. Most experts expect him to go in the top 20, and some have him projected to go as high as No. 8.

“You know I only had one suit because I was growing so fast, and that was for my senior picture,” he said. “So I do need to get one, but I think the agency is taking care of that. I hope they’re taking care of that.”

For Hayward, this is serious business.

He learned the rigors of NBA travel while going from workout to workout by himself and passed the idle time in his hotel room by doing push-ups and sit-ups. Along the way, he figured out a few things.

“I forgot the charger to my laptop,” he said, drawing laughter. “I learned that, definitely, all these guys are great players, so, at times, you’re going to get beat. I don’t want to get beat, but it happens.”

The biggest questions heading into the draft were whether Hayward was strong enough or a good enough outside shooter to play in the NBA.

On Monday, Hayward showed up with a more defined upper body, something he attributed to the strength and conditioning program he went through at St.Vincent Sports Performance on Indy’s west side. He acknowledged adding both weight and muscle, though Hayward couldn’t say how much he weighed or how much he was lifting.

The Pacers also got a firsthand look at how much better Hayward’s shooting touch could be after seeing his 3-point percentage drop from 44.8 percent in his freshman season to 29.4 percent last year. Hayward, running from one side of the court to the other, put on the best shooting exhibition of the six players in town for the workouts.

Heck, even Alabama-Birmingham’s Elijah Millsap told Hayward “nice job” after he made 4-of-5 3s from the corner.

“Everyone’s been asking about my shot, and it’s definitely improved just being in the gym all this time,” Hayward said.

Which leaves only one question for Thursday night: How high will Hayward go?

Indiana holds the No. 10 pick, and if he’s there, local fans will be pulling hard for Hayward, even though the Pacers have greater needs at point guard and power forward. Hayward knows there’s a greater likelihood he’ll be moving away from Indy for the first time in his life.

“I’ll be happy to go with whoever takes me,” he said. “For me, this has been a dream of mine to play at this level, and once I decided to come out I never looked back.”