Gordon Hayward and his wife Robyn have three children with a fourth on the way in September.
Hayward said he has been at the birth of the first three.
And he’ll be there for the birth of child No. 4 even as the Celtics start gearing up for the restart to the NBA season that will have Hayward and the rest of his teammates in Orlando, Fla. potentially into the month of October.
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Hayward, in a conference call with reporters on Friday, said he will leave the bubble in Orlando to be with his wife to welcome their first son into the world.
Having spent the past three months almost exclusively with his wife and three daughters, Hayward acknowledged he’ll miss not being around them when he’s sequestered in Orlando along with his teammates.
A number of NBA players gave serious consideration to not returning to play for health concerns amid the coronavirus, or to continue amplifying the conversations about racism sparked by the death of George Floyd.
“For a lot of people in the NBA, it’s a difficult decision,” Hayward said of returning to complete the season which was suspended on March 12. “To compete for a championship, compete for a title … we want to finish something we worked hard for all year.”
And for the Celtics to be among the last teams standing, they will need Hayward to continue building off of a season in which he was as close to being “All-Star” Gordon as we’ve seen since coming to Boston.
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Hayward averaged 17.3 points, 6.5 rebounds and 4.1 assists per game this season while shooting 50.2 percent from the field and 39.2 percent from 3-point range.
And now there’s a chance that the Celtics will be without Hayward for some portion of the postseason due to the birth of his fourth child.
As important as Hayward's presence and play may be to Celtics fans and to his teammates, this global pandemic that we are still in the midst of has taught many lessons about what really matters most.
Some within our society don’t get it.
Glad to see Hayward isn’t one of them by making it 100 percent clear where he stands by prioritizing what matters most in the grand scheme of things — family.