Hayes had a rough start to his career, really looking lost over the course of his first two seasons. He has some athletic tools that allows him to sky high for big dunks and swat opponents' shots into the stands, but otherwise looked pretty lost on both ends of the court. However, Hayes made some strides in the '21-'22 season, even starting some games alongside Jonas Valanciunas in a two-big lineup. Hayes played about half of his minutes at power forward in '21-'22, whereas previously he almost exclusively played center. Hayes runs the floor like a deer and jumps out of the gym, and those physical tools are what made him a top-10 pick in 2019. He runs hard, which can get him some easy baskets but also collapses the defense and allows openings for his teammates too. He's a lob threat out of pick-and-roll or just hanging around in the dunker spot. He finishes well inside, including hitting 76% of his shots at the rim in '21-'22, which was in the 86th percentile amongst bigs, according to Cleaning the Glass. He hit 74% in '22-'23 on a smaller sample size and 79% in '23-'24. Defensively, Hayes gets blocks at a good rate, but hasn't developed the positional awareness to become a good rim protector. He often is late to rotate, or rotates but instead of going chest to chest with the offensive player in a verticality attempt, he'll avoid contact. He moves his feet pretty well for a big, which allows him the ability to play the four where he would have to defend on the perimeter more often. The Pelicans defense really thrived after putting Hayes into the starting lineup in '21-'22, but it should be noted that their defense continued to thrive without him in '22-'23. Despite him making some strides in recent seasons, I'm still not quite sold on Hayes as a player that really impacts winning, Because he doesn't have much offensive ability besides dunking, it's hard to picture him thriving at power forward, and if he can't anchor a defense at center I think that really hurts his value. Hayes' minutes were very limited in '22-'23, and he wasn't in the regular rotation before settling for a minimum contract with the Lakers as a free agent in 2023. He was typically the regular back-up center for the Lakers, but hasn't done anything to significantly improve his game. Hayes will still only be 25 years old as a free agent in 2025, so there's a chance he could still make some improvements going forward, although he's getting to the age where it's more likely that he won't.