Gordon Hayward just finished a 2018-19 season which was full of growing pains and frustrations. In his first full year since suffering a broken leg during the first game of the 2017-18 season, Hayward averaged 11.5 points, 4.5 rebounds and 3.4 assists as the sixth man for the Boston Celtics.

Gordon Hayward grappled with being more assertive offensively and becoming yet another playmaker to complement Kyrie Irving. He averaged the lowest number of field goal attempts per game since his rookie season.

However, Hayward's struggles pale in comparison to the summer of 2018, which was full of continued rehabbing.

Now that he is fully healthy and in basketball shape, Hayward told Steve Bulpett of The Boston Herald that he is excited to work on his actual game, rather than his body:

“I’m definitely looking forward to having a good summer, not dealing as much with rehab but still definitely working on the ankle and all that type of stuff,” he said. “But that’s going to be nowhere near as much as before. I’m a lot of time removed from the surgery, and that’s for sure exciting.

“Now I can do what I’ve always done every summer, and I’m for sure looking forward to that, getting back to that and really digging in and trying to have a really good summer.”

With Irving's future in Boston appearing to be up for grabs, Hayward could become a much more pivotal figure in the Celtics' rotation. He was an All-Star during the 2016-17 season, convincing Boston to sign him to a lucrative contract of four years and close to $128 million.