Fool Me Twice: The Gordon Hayward Thread

[yosemiteben]

Random thoughts that I haven't seen yet:

How does this square with our Harrell interest? Were we really targeting both?

I will feel better about this if it turns into a bigger deal with salary going out. Reserving judgment until the dust settles.

[HornetJail]

We're stuck in the same place we've been stuck in for the past decade.

Probably good enough to not get a top pick. Probably bad enough to not make the playoffs.

It sucks even more because next years draft looks to be the best one in recent memory.

All because MJ is functionally (Please Use More Appropriate Word) as a FO executive. Stay the **** out of the team business dude. Get out of your own way

this.

there is a 3000% chance Jordan ran this whole offseason. The draft screams MJ- a "flashy name" that will "put butts in seats". too bad there won't be butts in seats due to COVID you **** dipstick.

[Braggins]

If LaMelo turns into a star before the end of his rookie contract, Monk makes a huge leap and becomes an elite 6th man scorer, and Miles develops into a high end jack of all trades role player, then this will be fine. If all those things were going to happen it still would have been way better to not sign Hayward and continue the rebuild for another season or two.

[Rich4114]

Not for nothing, but planning to be bad and win the draft lottery over a chance to improve right now is not a great strategy. We have a whole stable of young guys that are developing and could cause us to improve with or without Hayward. The real question is did we take ourselves out of contention for a better free agent next off season or the season after.

We are trying to win now. That’s not something I’ll be overly critical of them for. I would’ve been happy sitting free agency out and focusing one more season on development but I guess let’s go and try to compete now and see how it plays out.

[Emhoward]

This was the perfect year to just let the young guys play and grab a top pick next year. The perfect year. Covid-19, perhaps no fans in the arena, shortened season etc. Why couldn't they just sit pat? Why?!


The only good thing I see about this is, it helps LaMelo look better this year. He's a playmaker so he needs competent players around him to be successful. But still I don't see it.

Thing is -- thankfully, we're still gonna suck next year. No way we're even top ten in the East as I see it, so I don't think it'll cost us too much in draft positioning, but no need to pay 120mill just to be a little less bad.

[SWedd523]

The whole point of bottoming out is to amass young talent and cap capital that can be used (when ready) to consolidate into a good team

The Charlotte method:

Bottom out for one to two years
become a punching bag
Lose fans

Overpay aging vet on diminished returns
Top out as a 7seed
Get blown out of playoffs

Lose fans and become a punching bag as you wait 3 years as a 10 seed for money to finally fall of the books

Rinse repeat


The Hornets will never be a contender as long as MJ is the owner

[SWedd523]

If LaMelo turns into a star before the end of his rookie contract, Monk makes a huge leap and becomes an elite 6th man scorer, and Miles develops into a high end jack of all trades role player, then this will be fine. If all those things were going to happen it still would have been way better to not sign Hayward and continue the rebuild for another season or two.

Well **** at that point we should all buy lotto tickets since lightning has already struck three times in the same place

[Braggins]

If LaMelo turns into a star before the end of his rookie contract, Monk makes a huge leap and becomes an elite 6th man scorer, and Miles develops into a high end jack of all trades role player, then this will be fine. If all those things were going to happen it still would have been way better to not sign Hayward and continue the rebuild for another season or two.

Well **** at that point we should all buy lotto tickets since lightning has already struck three times in the same place

Yep, im not really hopeful a single one of those three things will happen lol.

[Rich4114]

This shouldn’t be compared to the Al Jefferson signing, which most would argue is one of the best free agency signings this franchise has ever made if not the best. But Al was signed on to a historically bad team with nothing developing other than Kemba. This is a young exciting developing team that just signed the best available free agent. I don’t think the sky is falling on this one.

[Braggins]

This shouldn’t be compared to the Al Jefferson signing, which most would argue is one of the best free agency signings this franchise has ever made if not the best. But Al was signed on to a historically bad team with nothing developing other than Kemba. This is a young exciting developing team that just signed the best available free agent. I don’t think the sky is falling on this one.

I would argue that the Big Al signing was the worst move the franchise has made since I started following it.

[JDR720]

Maybe we can be Minnesota.

Who have somehow managed to get like ten #1 overall picks the past 5 years and whiffed on all of them besides Towns.

[Braggins]

I'm putting the Hornets tag back on my bio as a badge of shame.

[Jstock12]

4yr/120M looks scary. But at the same time, Hayward had a really good regular season last year (50% from the field, 38% from three, which are the best percentages in his career).

I think more importantly, surrounding a kid like LaMelo with high character guys and really good players that could mentor him in various areas, is a really positive thing. I don't know if it's $120M worth of positive, but...

[Teal25]

Typical Hornets always get a great pick in a crappy draft then want to compete when the next year’s draft is amazing. This at least needs to be a sign and trade for Zeller.

[Emhoward]

Not for nothing, but planning to be bad and win the draft lottery over a chance to improve right now is not a great strategy. We have a whole stable of young guys that are developing and could cause us to improve with or without Hayward. The real question is did we take ourselves out of contention for a better free agent next off season or the season after.

We are trying to win now. That’s not something I’ll be overly critical of them for. I would’ve been happy sitting free agency out and focusing one more season on development but I guess let’s go and try to compete now and see how it plays out.

We're not planning to be bad, WE ARE bad. And Gordon Hayward doesn't change that, he just takes away the flexibility we would have had going forward -- and limits our ability to perhaps get more assets by doing what OKC is doing right now except on a smaller scale.

And of course adds just enough wins to the win total to have us to far down in the lottery to get a prospect that could truly change our fortunes.

[SWedd523]

This shouldn’t be compared to the Al Jefferson signing, which most would argue is one of the best free agency signings this franchise has ever made if not the best. But Al was signed on to a historically bad team with nothing developing other than Kemba. This is a young exciting developing team that just signed the best available free agent. I don’t think the sky is falling on this one.

So here's a story for you:

I take my 3 year old kid to the arcade every once in awhile. He loves it. Gets to run around and do dumb **** and waste daddy's money. That's cool. He's happy, I'm happy.

There's this one game where it's a big wheel with a bunch of numbers for tickets you win. Everything from 1 to 50 to JACKPOT.

You put your money in and the light goes round and round in a big circle and you're supposed to time it just right and slam the big red button when it swings by the JACKPOT

So I tell my kid, "Hey buddy you see the light? Slap this button when it gets to the big jackpot spot right here okay?"

Him: "okay daddy I got it!"

I put the money in and say, "okay dude here we go, get ready"

And what does this little dingus do EVERY, SINGLE, TIME?

Slaps the **** button randomly, nowhere near the jackpot, no planning, no timing, just slapping the button because it's cool and fun and makes him happy.

That's MJ.

[JMAC3]

Hayward was overpaid, but we gave up nothing for him. No picks, no young players, we had the cap space this year and next, and ultimately were going to overpay someone.

Honestly as well I know it is more money for Hayward, but I think guys like Wood and Bogdanovic have way higher bust potential.

[Braggins]

Random thoughts that I haven't seen yet:

How does this square with our Harrell interest? Were we really targeting both?

I will feel better about this if it turns into a bigger deal with salary going out. Reserving judgment until the dust settles.

Your post gives me serious deja vu from the Cho/Clifford era.

How many times have we been in this position, where the front office makes a seemingly atrocious move and the only thing we can do is tell ourselves that maybe there is something else going on that hasn't been reported on yet that makes it not as atrocious, which never turns out to be the case.

[MasterIchiro]

We're still rebuilding. If Terry is on the move the only player making any real money long term here will be Hayward. And we have to meet the salary floor. I'd rather do it with a player who makes everyone better rather than a player looking to get his like Rozier. MJ paid a premium for that. Hayward holds value as a facilitator. He's not going to steal the ball from our draft picks (we own all of them), he's going to elevate their play. Our GM has made solid selections in the first and second round. Many analysts had Ball as the number one talent in the draft. Are they wrong now? Give him some weapons out of the gate.

My idea of a rebuild is when you gradually win more games than the year prior. So we should be drafting worse than pick 8 next year. Can Kupchak snag a Bam or Booker or Mitchell there?

We had to pay Batum to go away. That's Cho's mistake. Cost us Kemba. We screwed Ainge. He probably low-balled us in the lead-up to Kemba's free agency. We got him back. Punched him in the gut good. We screwed the Pacers as well. Who was chasing Turner? Celtics and Hornets. Pacers were gonna send him away from their small market competitor and to the big bully in Boston. What did they want from us for Turner? We can flip Hayward to them at the deadline if they're nice. In the meantime, they can have some humble pie.

And maybe our scouts consider LaMelo as a superstar centerpiece. The message is we want to improve. That's a good message to send to a 19 year old. It's a positive first impression.

Now that I've calmed the nerves of some I have one last comment on this move.

Westbrook in 5, 4, 3, 2, 1...

[Rich4114]

This move swaps Gordon Hayward for Nic Batum and is costing us $9m more in 2020-21 of cap space. Are we upset because we have less cap room next year and the year after or because we won’t be as bad as we thought we’d be?