Re-drafting the 2019 NBA Draft: Matisse Thybulle rises, Sixers grab scorer

Re-drafting the 2019 NBA Draft — 25. Jaxson Hayes, Portland Trail Blazers

Part of me wants to put Jaxson Hayes in the lottery. He’s such a monster athlete that it could all just click one day, and then suddenly he’s one of the three or four best players from this draft. On the other hand, he might never be a consistent rotation piece. The defense is a mess right now, and offensively, he’s more a scattered collection of wow moments than a consistently impactful presence.

Hayes will throw down lobs that make his teammate Zion look stiff. He runs the floor like a gazelle-giraffe hybrid, galloping ahead of lazy defenses and using one of the NBA’s widest catch radiuses to finish at the rim. Effort isn’t really a problem, and Hayes can block shots into the rafters when he’s in the right place at the right time. Unfortunately, he’s not in the right place at the right time nearly as often as he should be.

The Blazers love a good project, and Hayes remains an absolute project. This is probably too low for a player with his ceiling, and I don’t feel great about it. But centers are a dime a dozen in the NBA these days, and unless Hayes can make drastic improvements to his fundamentals, then all the entertainment value will amount to very little tangible success.