Gordon Hayward had little need for a hoop at his house until a month ago.

Until the coronavirus outbreak shut down the NBA and forced teams to close their practice facilities, Celtics players had access to the Auerbach Center’s hoops and basketballs, as well as its extensive weight-lifting and cardio machines. A hoop at home really wasn’t necessary.

Hayward’s wife Robyn, however, disagreed.

“It’s like so wrong, it’s like a sin to be from Indiana and not have one,” she said last week.

According to Robyn, she offered to buy Gordon a hoop for his birthday, which landed two weeks into the shutdown. At the time, Hayward didn’t see the need.

“(It was) super cold, I also didn’t know how long this thing was going to last, so I just was like, ‘No, we don’t need to get a hoop,'” Hayward said. “But maybe depending how long this thing lasts, and hopefully the weather gets nicer, we could maybe take advantage of that.”

Hayward has been doing ball-handling drills in the driveway, and he has his collection of weights and the Peloton bike the Celtics sent all of their players. He said he appreciates how the Celtics’ staff has stayed involved – reminding players to work out and checking in to make sure everything is going smoothly.

But working out at home can be a challenge.

“It’s hard to work out consistently and intensely in your house,” Hayward said. “It’s just been for me, it’s better for me – when you go into the gym, you kind of know and you have a mindset, ‘OK I’m going to work out here today. I’m going to have this amount of time to work out and do what I want to do.’ When you’re at the house, there’s a lot of distractions, and a lot of things that can take you away from the workout, so that’s been kind of hard to do as well. The girls definitely crash the workouts, but I think you gotta just try to keep doing things consistently as much as you can.”

The weather hasn’t helped either.

“It would be nice if we could routinely and consistently get some nice weather, so then I could run outside,” Hayward said. “That’s one way for sure you can stay in shape, but it’s been so cold and rainy.”

Still, as the weather improves, Hayward could consider an outdoor hoop, just to stay fresh. He doesn’t have much hope that his girls will want to play with him, however.

“They’d probably just want to decorate it,” he said.

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