In his latest blog post, Boston Celtics small forward Gordon Hayward calls point guard Kemba Walker a “game-changer.”

Walker is replacing Kyrie Irving as the point guard in Boston. Hayward is looking forward to playing with the three-time All-Star.

Kemba is definitely a game-changer. The pace that he plays at, there’s not very many guys in the league that are as quick as he is, and can kind of find the seam the way he can. It opens things up for me. So I’m excited to get a chance to play with him this year.

I’ve always had a good relationship with Kemba dating back to our first few seasons in the league. It seems like we’ve always been around each other: Rising Stars games and All-Star games, and just playing against each other. We’ve had some battles.

It’s also kind of funny how sometimes the league comes full circle. A few years back when I was a restricted free agent, I went to Charlotte and signed an offer sheet then. We would’ve been teammates then if the Jazz hadn’t matched it. It was kind of similar with Kyrie. I remember Kyrie was at the meeting when I went to Cleveland as a restricted free agent.

You never know who you’ll be teammates with at some point in time.

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Kemba Walker has career averages of 19.8 points, 3.8 rebounds and 5.5 assists in 605 games. He put up 25.6 points and 5.9 assists per contest this past season with the Charlotte Hornets.

The Celtics don’t expect a big drop-off, if any, from Irving to Walker in terms of production on the court.

Walker is one of the best slashers and finishers in the NBA. He always commands heavy traffic around him when he’s driving toward the basket. Walker said at his Celtics introductory press conference that his teammates are going to get wide-open looks when he penetrates to the rim and collapses the defense since he’s a willing passer.