Los Angeles Lakers big man Jaxson Hayes hasn’t suited up for the storied franchise since March 6 thanks to a knee injury, but he’s stepped his game up ever since the team parted ways with star Anthony Davis.
In nine games played with Los Angeles following the All-Star break, he’s averaging 8.6 points, 5.9 rebounds and 1.2 blocked shots per game. Additionally, he’s shooting an impressive 74.4 percent from the field in that span.
However, Hayes will hit unrestricted free agency after this season, and according to The Athletic’s Jovan Buha, the 24-year-old will have his fair share of suitors this summer who will attempt to poach him from the Lakers.
“I believe the Lakers have his Bird rights, but I still think there’s a limitation to how much they could pay him,” Buha said of Hayes. “They could use that taxpayer MLE on him, but I could see him potentially being a casualty just because of circumstance like we saw with Malik Monk where the Lakers kind of got priced out based on their financial limitations.
“So, if a team threw the non-taxpayer at Jaxson after the way he’s played this season, I would not be shocked if that happened. And I think he would have to obviously return from this injury, continue to play well, be healthy the rest of the way and maybe Lakers go on a run to conference semifinals, conference finals. And if he’s a big part of that, I think there will be suitors who look at the pedigree of being a former lottery pick, look at the age, look at the skill set, look at the improvement and try to poach him from the Lakers.”
If how the Lakers have fared lately is of any indication, the team has felt Hayes’ absence. After Los Angeles rattled off an eight-game winning streak not long ago, the squad is amid a stretch of subpar play.
The Lakers are losers of every one of their last four games played and have not played well on the defensive end of the floor as of late. Los Angeles has allowed 111-plus points in every game in that stretch and most recently allowed the Denver Nuggets to score a whopping 131 points on March 14. Nuggets star Nikola Jokic shot 17 free throws against Los Angeles, while the Lakers mustered just 16 shots from the charity stripe as a team.
But on the bright side, it seems as if Hayes’ return to the court for Los Angeles could be imminent. He’s listed as probable to suit up in the Lakers’ matinee game against the Phoenix Suns on Sunday.
If he does indeed play against the Suns, hopefully his presence will be enough to help the Lakers snap their losing streak and get back to their winning ways. Los Angeles sits as the No. 5 seed in the West with a record of 40-25 on the season but is well within arm’s reach of the No. 2 seed.
The Lakers are just 1.5 games back of the Houston Rockets — who are riding a six-game winning streak at the moment — in the standings with 17 games remaining on Los Angeles’ 82-game slate.
