I know this may sound silly to some, but even if Hayward does make an All-NBA team, is Utah definitely willing to pay him the 'super-max'? I like Hayward as much as the next guy (and especially like him since he is a realistic target for the Cs this off-season), but $207M (is that right??) is a lot to commit to a player of his caliber.
Utah isn't exactly swimming in revenue and they have some decisions to make regarding player contracts. Hayward may seem like a slam dunk, but it's possible that just may be too much money for them to commit.
Yes, Utah would give him the most they can. Most of their contracts expire after the 2017-2018 season, so by the time they can give Hayward such an offer, they'll have a pretty clean cap and should be able to manage things.
If Utah doesn't think they'll offer him the deal if eligible, they should trade Hayward today.
Cousins situation shows us that of small-market teams could potentially get cold feet at the idea of offering a super-max to anyone short of a Lebron/Durant/Curry level slam dunk superstar. Hayward is a good player, but $200m over five years tied up in him is not a trivial investment.
The cold feet of Sacramento comes from multiple places:
1) They're ridiculously fickle, and have had no long-term organizational plan. Committing to a player for 6 years was not something they could handle.
2) What are they committing to? This is a team that hasn't had a winning record in many years, and pretty much had no long-term pieces aside from Cousins.
Utah, meanwhile, has been focused on building from within for quite some time -- certainly since they traded Deron. They have organizational stability and direction. They've already locked up another cornerstone player in Gobert for four more years after this one. They've got some other young players who are coming around, like Hood and Lyles. And they're a team that has a real chance at home court advantage for the first round of the playoffs. Do they have Golden State's future in front of them? Likely not. But could they be a team that is annually in the top half of the West over the life of Hayward's next deal? Absolutely. And with smart roster management, they can afford to pay him. It will be more difficult for them than some other teams, but it's already more difficult, and you don't give up just because it's not easy.
If they give Hayward the full designated max, that's 65m (or 65%+ of their salary cap) tied up in just Hayward and Gobert well into 2021 (George Hill is probably walking away with another 15% or so for 4 years this summer as well.) That's not trivial, and is going to severely impact their ability to improve beyond their core. Designated max contracts are very, very difficult to trade as well, because it's not easy to match 40m in salary no matter how much you want a player.
I'm not saying they're not going to do it, but it's a huge, huge, huge, huge risk. You're essentially locking into Hayward and Gobert as your top two players forever.
It's a fair bit less than 65%, fwiw. It obviously depends upon how the cap rises, but in 2018-2019 those two would take up 57%, as Gobert is already signed to a deal that's a little under the 25% max. It may sound like I'm splitting hairs, but that's over an $8 million difference, which can either be used to help keep around some of their secondary pieces like Hood, or improve their depth.
And as for not improving beyond their core -- the Jazz mostly hope that their core improves enough on its own. That is their strategy and has to be their strategy, primarily. It's a very tight line that they need to walk, but the odds that any lack of success is caused by stretching the budget to pay Hayward an extra $5-6 million a year are far exceeded by the odds that a lack of success will come from having Hayward leave and not being able to fill the void his departure creates.
Not saying that they're 100% not going to give him the designated max. Obviously there are reasons why they might make that decision.
Just giving you arguments as to why it's not a forgone conclusion like you seem to be saying.
It's a foregone conclusion. It's insulting to players to not get offered the most they can get. Look at Horford -- the Hawks were hesitant about going five years, so he left to sign with the Celtics for four years, even though that's something the Hawks were totally ready to sign up for. If Hayward makes All-NBA this year, and either chooses to not opt out, or signs 1+1 deal to remain in Utah, and then the Jazz don't come through, he will leave, and the organization will get a bad rep with players. If they don't feel they can make that offer if he qualifies, the Jazz should trade him, because he'll walk without it.
It's not even about the money -- it's about the pride. Why stay with an organization that tells you you're not good enough to pay as much as they can, when there's another team out there offering you as much as they're allowed?
And Utah already has negotiated away a little good willl with Hayward the last time he hit free agency, when they told him to go out and find a max offer. He did, and they matched, but it was a shorter deal than they could have signed him to on their own. He's not restricted this time, and if they let him go find another offer, they won't be given the opportunity to match.
Again-- if Utah isn't certain that they want to lock him up if he qualifies, they should trade him now while they can. It's their last chance.
Topic: Kyler - Hayward to only meet with C's and Jazz during free agency (Read 12873 times)