“I’m not gonna lie, it was weird in the locker room. I had to kind of calm myself down a little bit,” Hayes said after her first game with the team. “I felt a little out of place, but my teammates have been helping me out a lot. And once I stepped on the court, it was just like riding a bike. I was right back out there. And I’m grateful for the team that I’m on. It was easy right here. I know that. I’m just happy to be here. I know I keep saying that. It’s an easy answer, but it’s the truth.”
“When you’re talking about a professional, Tiff is that,” added A’ja Wilson on Hayes’ first few days with the team. “She comes in, we’re throwing so many different things at her, but the way that she’s adapting and adjusting, and like the quickness of it is — it’s amazing to watch. … The way that she’s grasping the information in such a short period of time. It just goes to show how great of a professional that she is. And we’re just so lucky to have her on our side.”
Before Hayes announced her retirement, she had played 11 seasons in the WNBA. She played 10 years in Atlanta before playing last season in Connecticut. She was a one-time All-Star and a one-time All-WNBA player. She had also started 97% of the games she’d played in over her last nine seasons in the league.
She played her first game in an Aces uniform six days after signing with the team and more than two months since her last game of organized basketball in the Chinese Women’s Basketball Association. She played 20 minutes, scoring 11 points, grabbing six rebounds and dishing four assists in a win over the Wings. Hayes knew it was going to take some time for her to get in shape, but from the first game she added something the Aces didn’t have: a bench scorer.
“Like [coach] Becky [Hammon] said, she got me straight off of the beach. You know, my mind was on the beach. My body was on the beach,” Hayes told The Next. “So they give me a lot of grace, and I’m grateful for that. And I just think this is just a whole new system, a whole new place, a whole new role for me. So no, I’m definitely not the player that I was last year in Connecticut or the years before in Atlanta, but I still feel like I bring value to the team in different ways right now, while that person is still finding her way back to me. I don’t know where she is right now, but I’m not stressing that at all.”
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Through her first 17 games this season, Hayes has averaged 8.6 points per game, 2.5 rebounds and 2.2 assists per game in an average of 21.2 minutes of game action. She’s had three games where she scored at least 17 points, and she finished the first half strong, scoring 19 points off the bench in a loss to Chicago. In her last two games before the break, Hayes averaged 18 points and four assists while shooting 74% from the field and 57% from 3.
Hayes knew coming into Las Vegas it would take time for her to find a rhythm. However, she wanted to make an impact right away, and that meant doing something she has become known for during her career: being a great defender. She has been handed some tough assignments since she arrived with the Aces and has stepped up to the challenge every time. She’s played in many closing lineups and in the fourth quarter of close games for the defending champs. Hammon was excited about signing Hayes, and it had as much to do with Hayes’ defense as it did her microwave scoring.
“I want her to be that spark, and I wanted her to be that that microwaved scorer coming off the bench,” Hammon said. “One, she’s capable of doing that. I think it’s in her DNA to do that. But the other thing, why she played late, is just her defense. She’s somebody who’s learning our defensive philosophies on the fly, becoming more disciplined in them. The clearer my instructions are and the clearer what our identity is defensively, the more that she can execute and do kind of less thinking and more habits. The reps have really helped her. … [She] just did a really great job of keeping them in front and not fouling. I know offensively, she’s gonna have nights. She’s had nights on us. That’s why I went out and got her. I have the utmost confidence in her playmaking ability, but her defense has really come along the last couple games.”
While Hayes has brought good energy to the Aces, it wasn’t easy for Hammon to persuade her to come back to the WNBA. Back when Hayes announced her retirement, she said she was done in the WNBA but would still play basketball overseas. She told her agent that if any WNBA teams called about her to tell them she was happily retired from the league. When Hammon was in a meeting with other Aces front office executives about adding players to their roster, Hayes’ name came up. While everyone in the room told the head coach she was retired, Hammon said there was no harm in checking.
When the Aces called Hayes, she was intrigued. She felt that it was hard to turn down an opportunity to play for the back-to-back champs. Plus, she felt what people saw on the outside was how the organization was on the inside, and that gave her confidence she could fit in. She also had a lot of different ventures going on outside the basketball court, and the Aces told her she’d have the freedom to continue to explore those while playing basketball.
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“First of all, they’re back-to-back champs, and what you see from the outside, to me, in my opinion, is that their organization just gives them everything they need to be successful,” Hayes said of her team. “Why wouldn’t I want to be a part of something like that, you know? Also, they were willing to work with me and the things that I’d already had planned and been working on. So I didn’t have to give those things up that I had been working so hard on for all of that time. I looked at it as a win-win for me. It’s a chance for me to not only experience a great organization, like this, a great coach in Becky and the best player in the world, a lot of the best players in the world, but also have a chance to be that person that I wanted to be off the court and be able to play this game that I love at the same time, and also have a chance to win a ring.”
The ventures Hayes had going on outside basketball were a big reason why she decided to retire from the WNBA in the first place. Hayes has three major business ventures she is invested in. She has her own clothing brand, Seyah Renara; her own headphone company, Mindzet; and her own basketball gym in the Atlanta area. These keep Hayes busy. She recently showed off her closing line at Miami Swim Week in May, causing her to miss one of the team’s games.
On top of all the other things going on in her life, Hayes helped the Azerbaijani women’s 3-on-3 national team qualify for the Olympics. Their qualification is the first team-sport qualification for Azerbaijan in Olympic history. Hayes started playing with their national team in 2015 after getting a chance to visit the capital, Baku, a few times. She is thinking about using her time in Paris to have some meetings about her fashion line and maybe even setting up a pop-up shop for her clothing and headphone businesses. Becoming a member of the Azerbaijani national team was something that Hayes’ agent did the research on for her back in 2015. She didn’t bat an eye when the opportunity presented itself.
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“I’m very excited. Every person who plays a sports dream is to make it. That’s the biggest stage in sports, the Olympics,” Hayes said. “For me to make it there with this team — and we made history. We’re literally the first team in any sport to make it to the Olympics from Azerbaijan. So just to be a part of that, and for me to be going there with them, it really still feels like a dream. When we won, I was so shocked. [I was] like, ‘Are we really going, or is this a joke?’ So it feels good, and it feels amazing to be a part of, and I’m just happy that somebody did their research and was able to find me this, because I’m really living a dream right now, and I couldn’t be more grateful.”
As Hayes readies for her first games in Paris, her presence and impact on the Aces since her arrival have been major. With Hayes, the Aces are 11-6. She knew it would take some time for her to find her rhythm offensively, but her ability to impact the game with her defense and rebounding has been what she’s focused on since day one. She hasn’t stressed about her scoring, knowing it will come as she gets back into game shape.
When she came to the Aces, her goal was to help the team win in whatever way necessary. She’s been in a new role coming off the bench but has found a spot for herself on this roster. She is still working to find her voice in the locker room, but her impact has been strong so far. She has played a major role in multiple Aces wins and been in a lot of closing lineups for the team. For Hayes, she is trying to bring energy and knows the goal for herself and the entire organization is one thing: another ring.
“Defense, just being a big defensive presence. Being that person who’s bringing that energy off the bench,” Hayes said. “Being a person who’s talking a lot more. I’ve always been a leader by example, so I think I still am that, but at the end of the day … I know I haven’t been my full self as of yet, so I definitely have been working on adding more voice to my leadership role, and it’s been going good. We have been able to bring a lot of that energy off the bench for the games. We do a great job when we come in the game, to give the starters that little boost that they may or may not need on any given night. Just sticking with that role and making sure that I’m bringing that day in and day out.”
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