First of all I'll repeat that I don't really care about Hayward anymore. I don't think what he did was that bad and not worth holding a grudge this many years later. I do have some thoughts on the current discussion that I'll add:
- When people make a decision to leave their job, it's not just an employee/employer relationship. They aren't just affecting the guy who writes their check, but their coworkers, line managers, etc. Considerate/good people should at least think about how their decision will affect others and do what they can to soften the blow.
- It's easy to think of an employer as some heartless machine with CEOs and big wigs who don't care about anything else except for the bottom line. It's harder to think that way when you are close to the owner of the company and they are someone like Gail Miller.
- In the end I agree that people will and should do what is in their best interest, but there are nuances to this that are being ignored. First of all it is in people's best interest to not burn bridges. Secondly mature people can make small concessions to what is best for them to show respect/grace for how the situation will be perceived by others.
All of these points go back to what I meant when I said what Hayward did was the equivalent of someone quitting without notice. I didn't intend to imply that he quit or didn't give notice, but that it was the way he left not that he left that was the problem. When someone quits without notice they are showing a lack of maturity and selfishness that burns bridges and mostly hurts their coworkers and line managers. For most jobs, it actually doesn't help that much to give a two weeks notice, but you are at least showing respect and maturity. Someone might think it is in their best interest to start their new job right away and giving their old job any more of their time would be a waste, but by showing that little amount of decency they can both have their long term best interest and not burn bridges/have time to soften the blow for those affected.
By Hayward taking so long to go on his free agency tour, and taking even extra time to write his player's tribune article he made it so the Jazz couldn't try and sign the top free agents that year. By not making his decision earlier we ended up making decisions based on him (signing Rubio for example) that we might not have done if we knew what he was planning on. He could have tried to soften the blow by working out a S&T to give Utah a TPE, or at the very least communicated to those affected more maturely (from what I remember being reported). It was more than fine for him to choose to go to Boston, but he did it in a way that was immature an selfish. It wasn't really that bad and he was young, and maybe that should have been expected, but it was reasonable for people to be off put by the way he chose to leave.
