Teague also left the team that traded for him and signed somewhere else. Hill was a better fit and things didnt work out trading for Teague could have and likely would have resulted in him signing else where as well. We where waiting on Hayward and would not have signed Teague until after that fiasco and Teague would have signed with Minny still. Its not like we could not have tried to sign Teague this last off season.
DL very much knew the cap was going up. No other team seemed as aware of the cap situation as Jazz. They were very well prepared for all of the changes and made our roster flexible and still keep it flexible in case there is a chance to make a deal. That is why they matched the Hayward contract. They offered Hayward a fair contract. Hayward bet on himself and found a max deal. It happens all the time. Frankly I am glad we dont have Hayward this year because we might not have aggressively moved up to get Mitchell if we had Hayward still. He still would have lied to the Jazz over and over again and still would leave after this season.
The problem with your lineup is that we would still need a stretch 4 since Millsap does not fill that role, nor does he fit in with the timeline at all of Mitchell and Gobert.
Frankly no team has dealt with the kind of injuries Jazz have, its lucky we had success at all last year with injuries all year and losing Gobert in the playoffs. There is no way to predict those injuries and prepare for that. Jazz should have made the playoffs for multiple years with Hayward but injuries held us way back. We should have been a 60 win team last year and that would have gone a long way in going further in the playoffs. We also might have pushed GS a little harder if we had a healthy Favors, Gobert and Hood but we didnt. I dont know what Hayward would have done but he might have stayed had we had a lot more success.
But life goes on we have one of the best young players in the NBA that we can build around. Mitchell is a bigger star than anyone the Jazz have had since S&M. Our future is bright with that kind of player.
