Gordon Hayward Admits League of Legends Gamers '100,000% More Toxic' Than NBA Players

Boston Celtics forward Gordon Hayward is a big fan and an avid player of League of Legends; however, that doesn’t mean he likes everything about the game.

On Monday night during a Twitch stream, Hayward opened up about how toxic the players are in the popular online multiplayer strategy game. In fact, the Celtics star even went as far as to say that LoL gamers are “100,000 percent” more toxic that his fellow NBA players.

While Hayward was smiling and laughing while making the remarks, he did add that he cannot imagine the NBA having players like those in LoL where they would trash talk and say awful things to each other during a timeout.

He even poked fun at the common LoL habit to compare teammates to their counterpart on the opposing team, saying that NBA players would say “small forward difference” or “center difference” – a reference to terms like “jungle diff” and “ADC diff.”

“I can’t imagine being on a team in the NBA where they were as toxic as they are in League of Legends,” Hayward shared when asked who is more toxic, LoL or NBA players.

“If you missed a three-pointer or something, like everyone else on the team starts flaming you, like ‘best three-point shooter NA.’”

Fortunately for Hayward, the NBA isn’t like that (although there are still a lot of players who trash talk in the league). It is also a good thing that he did not push through becoming a professional eSports player or else he might have to deal with the toxicity on a consistent basis.

It is also clear that Hayward was enjoying the NBA season before its suspension due to the coronavirus pandemic. The Celtics were in third place in the Eastern Conference standings with a 43-21 record and were well on their way to a playoff appearance.

As for Hayward, he was contributing big time for the Beantown team, averaging 17.3 points, 6.5 rebounds and 4.1 assists per game while shooting 50.2 percent from the field, 39.2 percent from deep and 84.7 percent from the free-throw line (per Basketball Reference).

For what it’s worth, no one from his team is talking bad to the 30-year-old small forward during games, which seems to be happening to him a lot in League of Legends.