![]() "Our hope is our players grow into larger roles, and we continue a path which best serves the Jazz," Lindsey says. The Jazz can't wallow in Hayward what-ifs: What if Utah had known a massive salary-cap spike was coming, and lavished Hayward with a four- or five-year max offer in July 2014 (or an extension the prior fall) - instead of playing hardball, and then matching Charlotte's offer, which left Hayward a free agent after just three years?ĭid they wait too long to give Hayward the keys? Did they make a mistake letting Paul Millsap walk for nothing, removing a security blanket to ease Hayward's transition into an alpha role? Should they have anticipated the worst and tried to flip Hayward to Boston in 2015-16, eighteen months ahead of his free agency, in exchange for a golden Nets pick? (That is a tough ask for a team about to bust through after a slow build.) Hayward has left Dennis Lindsey, Utah's GM, with the greatest challenge of his career: find a new path to 55 wins that doesn't involve a tanking detour. After five years, trust us, say what you are going to do. "I was texting him a few days before, and he wasn't texting me back. It still smarts for Rudy Gobert, now Utah's undisputed franchise star - an all-world defender the Jazz are banking on as a magnet for free agents. "It was a sick feeling," says Ingles, Hayward's closest friend on the team. They had inklings Gordon Hayward might leave. ![]() They all remember where they were when one man's choice burned a road map to a half-decade of 55-win seasons: Donovan Mitchell, in his hotel room in Salt Lake City with his sister and mother Derrick Favors, home in Atlanta preparing for the birth of his son and Joe Ingles (plus a bunch of Utah coaches) at what turned out to be the most poorly timed team barbecue in league history. How the Jazz move ahead without Gordon Hayward You have reached a degraded version of because you're using an unsupported version of Internet Explorer.įor a complete experience, please upgrade or use a supported browser
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