Gordon Hayward's free agency saga was filled with so much fanfare. From his decision not to return to the Utah Jazz to his process of finding his new team to that of him finally inking a contract with the Boston Celtics, it was always considered a spectacle for the news-hungry media that some tend to get exaggerated. For Hayward, one of those that has been blown out of proportion is his relationship with Celtics coach, Brad Stevens.
Sitting in as guest of Adrian Wojnarowski's The Woj Pod, Hayward expounded more on the matter.
“The relationship between Brad and I has been completely overstated and overhyped from everybody,”
Hayward going to Boston this summer had always been speculated upon even before his contract with the Jazz expired, and that's largely because people assumed that the opportunity of reuniting with his former college coach was too good for the forward to pass up.
“There was always rumors about going to Boston, and those, to me, were always just rumors. I didn’t really ever think about it, because I wasn’t a free agent, wasn’t really concerned with the Boston thing,” Hayward continued, “but everybody else was saying, ‘Oh, he’s going to go to Boston because of Brad.’ And we had a great relationship, but it wasn’t like we were constantly texting each other or calling each other. He’s the head coach of the Boston Celtics. He’s got things to worry about.”
This appears to contradict, at least to some degree, what he said in his The Players' Tribune piece back in July 4, wherein he implied that the chance to chase a championship with Stevens once again was a big factor why he went to Beantown.
Whatever the case may be, this news surely would not help Jazz fans move on.