Gordon Hayward sounds like a man who’s made peace with the ending, and found a new way to keep the game in his hands.
Hayward officially retired on August 1, 2024, closing a 14-year NBA career that included stops in Utah, Boston, Charlotte and Oklahoma City, plus an All-Star nod in 2017. Retirement, he’s said, fits. He still checks box scores and stays plugged into the league’s current events, but he hasn’t exactly been spending his nights streaming Hornets games. The distance is real, and yet, the pull of basketball hasn’t disappeared.
Hayward is sitting on the couch, holding something that looks like a blown-up Super Mario “Question Block,” talking about “shooting it a couple times” and “building from there.” The setup reads like he’s about to reveal a Lego hobby. The punchline is more Hayward than it first appears: it’s a training tool, a flat-sided, cube-shaped “basketball” designed to reinforce proper hand placement and provide instant feedback on your release.
Hayward’s connection to it isn’t a random endorsement, either. He explained that he originally discovered the product online while looking for something that could help with hand positioning. He bought one, connected with its inventor (who had been calling it “Qube”), and later, alongside former Butler teammate Emerson Kampen, acquired most of the company, redesigned elements, and relaunched it under the name Form.
The cube shape is the whole point. A normal ball can forgive a lot; a cube can’t. If the shot comes off wrong, it doesn’t spin cleanly, the wobble tells on you immediately. Hayward’s favorite feature is how un-glamorous that feedback loop can be: you don’t even need a rim. He described casually “shooting” it up and down from the couch, repeating the motion until the form locks in, a retired pro turning muscle memory into a living-room routine.
So no, it isn’t a basketball in the traditional sense. And it isn’t a toy, either. It’s the most Gordon Hayward version of staying connected: not chasing the next comeback, not clinging to highlights, but obsessing, quietly, precisely, over the smallest details of how a shot is supposed to leave your hands. Even in retirement, the game still finds him.
