Lets say Hayward walks.. How can they best damage control it?

[Bodhi]

They shouldn't let it get to that point. And the crippling move would be to pay him the max. He's a 3rd or 4th best option on a championship contender and we have NONE of our core locked up long term. Re-signing him would probably cost us multiple other pieces of our core and/or kill all financial/roster flexibility that could be used in obtaining the player(s) that can put the bulk of this core into championship contention. Re-signing Hayward is not a championship winning path. Which is why I've been advocating a Hayward trade all off-season. DL has done a great job in the asset acquisition portion of this rebuild. The foundation of certain key pieces going forward is there. Now the key is to keep flexibility and as many of the assets as possible until the opportunity arises to get that star player to carry those key pieces to a championship level. Moving Hayward for good assets allows you to do that. Let's say they move him to Boston for example which I think would be a perfect trading partner because they have great assets and are dying for a player like Hayward right now. The best piece they could get back would be Brooklyn's 2017 1st rounder, likely a top 3-5 pick (could easily be #1), in a loaded draft.

Let's look at our future with that deal...
2017- Rudy is a free agent. They could easily sign him to the max, no issues.
The player selected with Brooklyn's pick would be under contract until 2021.
Decisions will need to be made on George Hill, Shelvin Mack, Boris Diaw, Joe Ingles and Tibor Pleiss. They will have room to keep any if they want too.

2018- Favors, Exum, Hood and Joe Johnson will all be free agents. If we kept Hayward, we would be in cap hell at this point. Weighing our options between likely going over the luxury tax or maybe letting one or two of these guys walk. But with that money available we have options. It's possible Favors, Hood and Exum could all be kept. Especially if we have found our star by then (whether that star be someone on the team already who broke out, the Brooklyn pick, or someone acquired via free agency or trade)

2019- Lyles and Burks will be free agents. It becomes hard to speculate what the team will look like at this point. But this path is much stronger than the one re-signing Hayward would be. It opens the door to keeping the bulk of our core. Gobert, Hood, Exum and Favors and/or Lyles could all be kept. Assets are maintained. Roster flexibility is kept. Financial flexibility is kept. We stay a solid team. And the organization buys itself precious time (2-3 years) to see if any of these young guys Hood, Exum, Lyles, Gobert or maybe the Brooklyn pick breaks out and carries us to another level. Time is everything. THIS is a possible championship path.

This.

 

[Game6Conley]

This.

Boston isn't trading that pick for Gordon Hayward, thats quite clearly a terrible appraisal of the worth of that pick... Sorry to be the bearer of bad news, that's a total ****ing pipe dream though.

That's on par with saying "Lets trade Hayward for Andrew Wiggins!"

Josh Jackson is a vastly superior prospect than Hayward ever was.. They're not feeling that froggy, trust me.

 

[green]

Color me unimpressed, I say that type of stuff is easily accomplished.. Giannis can guard 1-5 and where'd that get Milwaukee last season? And they signed a max player that many teams were bidding on.

vs. bottom-feeders some of that may ring true.

Joe Johnson isn't guarding Klay Thompson. Hill isn't guarding Kevin Durant, Hayward isn't guarding Steph Curry. This is about trying to counter Golden State. Thats how the games been rigged, I know many are ready to lay down, fetal position style and wait it out, not me tho. It's clear how the Jazz can position themselves to counter this style of ball.

As i've already outlined the frontcourt in place is built to cause them issues, the $64,000 question is how can the wings and guards be tweaked to try and keep the pace enough so that the frontcourt advantage is enough to win.

Countering GS?!? Lol. If you want to counter GS, you trade Hayward, Gobert, Favors and everyone else not named Exum for Brooklyn's pick next year and hope you get two top 3 picks to pair with Exum. That's your only chance and that chance sucks.

Only if you have a player on LeBron's level (maybe top 3 of all time) do you have a shot vs GS.

 

[FalseFlagg K]

Boston isn't trading that pick for Gordon Hayward, thats quite clearly a terrible appraisal of the worth of that pick... Sorry to be the bearer of bad news, that's a total ****ing pipe dream though.

That's on par with saying "Lets trade Hayward for Andrew Wiggins!"

Josh Jackson is a vastly superior prospect than Hayward ever was.. They're not feeling that froggy, trust me.

trust you ?? cough ... Harrison Barnes .. cough

 

[Game6Conley]

trust you ?? cough ... Harrison Barnes .. cough

Way past their prime Joe Johnson and Boris Diaw combine to make about 5mil less than Barnes, who's entering his prime.

We're also in a thread talking about what if Hayward walks? which would leave Hood and his 6'8" wingspan to defend SF's... right? Or 35 year old 270lb Joe Johnson is going to step in defensively? Barnes would be a damn good option IMO. He's got the positional and defensive flexibility some are in this thread hyping.

 

[SCS]

Appreciate the response but you must have not read the OP! This isn't about trading Hayward, this is about what to do if he walks!! Also I said to presume Rudy signs an extension after the Olympics.

I read the OP. My plan would just be a preemptive move to avoid it. If he did walk however, they would have to lock up Gobert asap assuming they hadn't already. They would also probably plan toward re-signing Hood who I believe given the same opportunity can be every bit as good as Hayward. It would ruin their current plans probably but they've built such a good young talent base that we would be alright.

 

[Game6Conley]

Countering GS?!? Lol. If you want to counter GS, you trade Hayward, Gobert, Favors and everyone else not named Exum for Brooklyn's pick next year and hope you get two top 3 picks to pair with Exum. That's your only chance and that chance sucks.

Only if you have a player on LeBron's level (maybe top 3 of all time) do you have a shot vs GS.

I'm quite familliar with all the players that'd be those picks, why would you think that Exum and 2 of those players would be an effective counter for the foursome of KD, Klay, Steph and Draygoon? Humor us.

If you're talking about trading Gobert and Favors to counter GS this has obviously gone way over your head, thats Utah's advantage, you don't get rid of that to try and fight fire with more fire, it's not going to work, and frankly everyone will get fired and it'll look pitiful. Teams around the league will poach our talent and use it better.

 

[SCS]

Boston isn't trading that pick for Gordon Hayward, thats quite clearly a terrible appraisal of the worth of that pick... Sorry to be the bearer of bad news, that's a total ****ing pipe dream though.

That's on par with saying "Lets trade Hayward for Andrew Wiggins!"

Josh Jackson is a vastly superior prospect than Hayward ever was.. They're not feeling that froggy, trust me.

The Brooklyn pick was just an example. There are many other possible deals we could get for Hayward that would still give us assets and flexibility. I wouldn't count out Boston moving that pick though. They are desperate for a player who can win now and they have boatloads of other picks in future drafts and young players already that they could justify trading that pick.

 

[Game6Conley]

I read the OP. My plan would just be a preemptive move to avoid it. If he did walk however, they would have to lock up Gobert asap assuming they hadn't already. They would also probably plan toward re-signing Hood who I believe given the same opportunity can be every bit as good as Hayward. It would ruin their current plans probably but they've built such a good young talent base that we would be alright.

Those players are restricted, their under the Jazz control. what else would you do, what would you do with the cap space left by Hayward?

 

[Game6Conley]

The Brooklyn pick was just an example. There are many other possible deals we could get for Hayward that would still give us assets and flexibility. I wouldn't count out Boston moving that pick though. They are desperate for a player who can win now and they have boatloads of other picks in future drafts and young players already that they could justify trading that pick.

Boston is positioned for homecourt advantage and to be one of the top challengers in the east as is, why would they be so desperate to trade for Hayward when they can just sign him in the offseason?

Basically, you think Boston is as desperate as the Knicks were for Carmelo? C'mon now, they're obviously not that naive.

 

[Game6Conley]

Talks of trading Hayward now remind me of the Melo-Denver situation.. is that offbase? The issue is there's not suckers to be had like there were back then.

The biggest difference is that Melo actually led the Nuggets to the Western conference finals. Conversley If the Jazz get out of the first round with Hayward that'll be seen as an accomplishment. The Denver-Melo situation went stale while they were consistently in the playoffs.....

 

[SCS]

Boston is positioned for homecourt advantage and to be one of the top challengers in the east as is, why would they be so desperate to trade for Hayward when they can just sign him in the offseason?

Basically, you think Boston is as desperate as the Knicks were for Carmelo? C'mon now, they're obviously not that naive.

They were offering the #3 pick at the draft a month ago for Hayward, why wouldn't they offer a good pick for him now? If they were just going to wait until next year they wouldn't have offered a month ago. Yes the Celtics are desperate they have been rumored to be trading for about every major name known to have possibly been available over the past two months.