New Orleans Pelicans: How Jaxson Hayes can save his season

New Orleans Pelicans: Jaxson Hayes should watch Robin Lopez

Robin Lopez has never been much of a scorer in the NBA, in fact, his shot is pretty ugly. He is getting better especially from behind-the-arc but if you watch his early career, he rarely shot the ball unless he was right at the rim.

So how has Lopez stayed in the league and made so much money? He does three things very well: Set screens, play team defense and rebounds the ball.

Lopez doesn’t care about his stats, only about winning and making his teammates better. Jaxson Hayes can do this by getting better defensively (which I already mentioned) and by rebounding and setting screens on the offensive end.

Hayes can be tough to stop when he is rolling to the rim, but first he has to set a screen that actually involves some contact with the defender. He usually rolls way too early without really touching the defender, so the pick-and-roll isn’t as effective.

Hayes can also be a force on the offensive glass, as he has the height and hops to get to balls quickly for tip-ins and dunks.

Hayes should be crashing the offensive glass on every shot and needs to learn how to set better screens so that he can be more of a contributor on offense without shooting the ball.

Jaxson Hayes is still very young and seems to have the desire to be great, but so far his efforts have largely been unfocused.

He needs to learn the game from the defensive end up, start setting more physical screens and to crash the offensive glass for put backs.

There is time to save this season for Jaxson Hayes but it will take work.