As people all around America were scarfing down hot dogs, cracking open beers and enjoying Independence Day Gordon Hayward was also finding out what it was like to be independent on the open market. The NBA All-Star forward was being courted mainly by three teams this offseason, the incumbent Utah Jazz, the Boston Celtics coached by his college coach Brad Stevens and the Miami Heat with their warm weather and Pat Riley promises.
When it was all said and done, Hayward picked the Celtics but the journey on the 4th of July was odd and looked bleak for Boston at one point in time. It was just straight up strange for about five or six hours.
Jody Genessy of the Deseret News has all the info from the weird day. He spoke to Hayward’s agent Mark Bartelstein who detailed the odd day. The agent from Priority Sports spent July 5th talking to multiple outlets about the issues they faced just the day before.
In the week leading up to making important visits with the three NBA franchises he was interested in possibly playing for, Gordon Hayward spent time writing down things on his mind about his impending life-changing decision.
Hayward, working with a ghostwriter, crafted three different versions of a blog for The Players’ Tribune, a website that produces articles written by athletes. The piece was supposed to break the news about where he’d spend the next part of his career, which — spoiler alert — we all know now will be Boston.
Hayward wrote a version in case he decided to remain with Rudy Gobert, Joe Ingles, Quin Snyder and his team of seven years, the Utah Jazz.
Hayward wrote a version in case he opted to team up with Pat Riley, Erik Spoelstra and the Miami Heat.
Hayward also wrote a version in case he chose to rejoin his college coach and trusted mentor Brad Stevens, All-Stars Isaiah Thomas and Al Horford, and the Boston Celtics.
“It was cathartic to write these things,” Hayward’s agent Mark Bartelstein told the Deseret News.
The blogs, which helped Hayward clarify some thoughts in an angst-filled process, were 90 percent written before Tuesday when Hayward planned on making his decision and announcement, according to Bartelstein. The final 10 percent was to be finished after the grueling decision was finalized.
The plan was for Hayward to quickly wrap up the blog, for his agent to inform the three front offices of the choice by phone, for The Players’ Tribune staff to hit send and publish the blog, and then to “let his words be heard,” Bartelstein explained.
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Multiple sources who’d been in contact with Hayward on Tuesday told the Deseret News the same thing. One source close to Hayward said the 27-year-old was leaning toward the Celtics in the morning but wasn’t aware that he’d made his final decision.
Bartelstein, who knows things might appear otherwise, claims that’s truly the case even while trusted reporters are sticking to their stories and backing their sources’ claims that Hayward was indeed Boston-bound at that point.
The agent said Hayward was “strongly leaning” toward Boston but was still undecided. The Celtics hadn’t heard from his camp at that point, either.
“People can say now that that report was right. It was not,” Bartelstein said. “Anyone that says they knew Gordon knew what he was doing didn’t know. How could they know? Because he didn’t know.”
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On Tuesday morning, Bartelstein contacted teams with a list of questions Hayward wanted answered, and the small forward started to have “a little bit more clarity” about choosing the Celtics for a four-year contract with a player option on the fourth year.
Bartelstein insists Hayward still hadn’t fully made up his mind, though, when all heck broke loose. They never wanted the news to break before informing Jazz general manager Dennis Lindsey and others with whom they’d engaged in discussions.
“It caused chaos. It was really unfair to Gordon and to us,” Bartelstein said. “We are in the middle of going through this when all of a sudden this report came out that he’d made a decision. Obviously, we were flabbergasted this could come out.”
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Even so, it’s widely believed that Hayward made his decision and spent the afternoon writing his blog — even after the supposed leak — because he wanted to break the news his way and refused to admit it until his piece had been posted.
“That,” Bartelstein said, “is complete nonsense.”
