Gordon Hayward suffered one of the worst injuries most NBA fans will ever see during his very first game as a member of the Celtics in October. After going up to try and catch an alley-oop pass, Hayward came down awkwardly on his left leg and his ankle bent in a completely unnatural way. He was obviously in a lot of pain after sustaining the injury, and was eventually diagnosed with a dislocated ankle and a broken tibia. And while it sounds like he’s going to be okay to resume playing basketball after some time off, he’s still dealing with the trauma that came along with the injury.
Hayward made an appearance on Today on Thursday morning and spoke about the worst part of the injury. To him, it wasn’t the pain that made it unbearable. It also wasn’t the fact that the injury ended his first season with the Celtics before it even really got started. Rather, he struggled most with seeing how his mom reacted to what happened. He got teary-eyed as he talked about seeing her reaction to his injury.
"As a parent, you don’t want your child to go through that," he said. "And as a parent myself, I would rather take their pain. And this is where it makes me emotional, because I wouldn’t want [my children] Bernie or Charlie to go through that."
Elsewhere in the interview, Hayward talked about how his kids reacted to the injury once he returned home following surgery.
"I think having the two little ones will really help me," he said. "They give you a little bit of perspective because they don’t know what’s going on. They just know Daddy has a boo boo, and so they like to decorate it with stickers and give it a hug and a kiss because that’s what we do when they get boo boos. It’s a little comic relief with them, for sure."
In addition to appearing on Today, Hayward also put up a Facebook post on Wednesday thanking everyone for their support.
In the post, he revealed that he’s going to miss the remainder of the 2017-18 NBA season. But during a press conference on Thursday, he said that he still plans to spend plenty of time around his new teammates in the months to come.
"It’s going to be really important for me and my mental health to stay involved and still be a part of the team as much as I can," he said.
Hayward has already started doing some rehab exercises at the Celtics facility. He has also begun taking shots on the court—while seated in a chair—to keep himself in the right frame of mind. But he won’t be able to make his official return to the court until his injury fully heals, which will require months of waiting around followed by a grueling rehab schedule.
