Given both the way his Jazz run ended and his inability to return to form this past season after incurring a devastating injury in his first year with the Boston Celtics, Gordon Hayward may not immediately jump out to casual fans for this kind of list. Make no mistake about it, though, Hayward was an incredible get.
Sure, he was a lottery pick at No. 9, and the goal is always to make a splash in the top 10, but clearly, the Jazz knew something that others did not. And I’ve got no issue with admitting that I was a member of the un-learned masses.
Back in the summer of ’10, the Jazz were shifting gears. It wasn’t so much a rebuild as it was a reboot; the team still had D-Will, but Boozer was on his way out of town, and Memo was set to join the AARP pool. With a glaring hole in the frontcourt, I was hoping Utah could trade up to pick Derrick Favors and play him behind Paul Millsap.
When that pipe dream didn’t come true, I hoped for Ed Davis. Instead, they drafted Hayward, the skinny white kid who had just come off a crazy run in the NCAA Tournament with Butler. The crowd at the team’s draft party booed the pick. I wasn’t there, but I wasn’t feeling it either.
That said, the Hayward pick is a prime example of why you almost always take the best player available on your draft board, regardless of position. Between Millsap, Al Jefferson, and, later, Favors, the Jazz were strong at the four-spot for years to come. In the meantime, Hayward’s game blossomed.
Eventually, he became the Jazz’s go-to scorer, a plus defender, an All-Star in ’17, and one of the league’s premier wing talents. In his final year with the team, Hayward put up 22 points, five boards, and four assists per game while shooting 40 percent from deep.
Then he bolted for Beantown. Sigh.
Next: No. 6