World News – CA – The Hornets have just given Gordon Hayward one of the worst free agent deals in the recent past

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Gordon Hayward signed a four-year, $ 128 million deal with the Boston Celtics in 2017. At the time, he was a 27-year-old all-star with a near-flawless medical history. In the past three years the following has occurred:

It’s fair to say that Hayward should at least be worth less today than it was in 2017. Hold Michael Jordan’s beer.

The Charlotte Hornets have just placed Hayward on a four-year $ 120 million deal that, from a practical point of view, will actually cost them more than Hayward’s original deal with Boston. Why? Because they will supposedly forego Nicolas Batum by using the stretch provision to make room for the signature. That’ll cost them an additional $ 9 million a year over the next three seasons, bringing the total cost of the Hayward acquisition to $ 147 million over a four-year period.

Charlotte not only pays more money for Hayward than Boston. It pays a higher percentage of the cap for its services. The cap for 2017 was 99. 093. 000 USD. On average, his deal cost Boston $ 32 million a year. That’s about 32. 3 percent of this upper limit. Charlotte’s deal with Batum turns 36 on average. 750. $ 000 per year, down from $ 109. 14 million cap or around 33. 4 percent, and Boston signed it on the assumption that the cap would rise indefinitely. Charlotte signs it in an unsafe, pandemic-affected environment. No matter how you cut it, the Hornets pay more for a 30-year-old Hayward than Boston for the 27-year-old version. In fact, they give Hayward one of the toughest deals in basketball.

Only 22 players in the NBA have contracts that, according to Spotrac, are worth more than $ 147 million in total. Of those 22 players, 15 are former All-NBA selections. Hayward isn’t. Of the seven who didn’t deserve this honor, five got rookie deals when they signed with the expectation that they would eventually reach that level. Devin Booker, Jamal Murray, Kristaps Porzingis, and De’Aaron Fox all likely have All-NBA selections in their future, and Andrew Wiggins couldn’t do so as a former No.. The Minnesota Timberwolves had rightly assumed he could.

This leaves two other players off this list: Mike Conley and Tobias Harris. They signed their contracts during the boom times. Conley was able to get over $ 150 million out of the Memphis Grizzlies thanks to the 2016 cap tip. Tobias Harris benefited from the 2019 bonanza of $ 180 million. Those were perhaps the two best free agent summers in NBA history. In hindsight, we now know that these are two of the worst contracts in basketball. Your teams probably understood this risk, but had no choice but to sign them for free or lose. Harris and Conley were able to get such contracts out of their teams as the cap space was sufficient to guarantee them multiple maximum offers elsewhere as leverage.

Hayward had no such leverage. It is known that only one other team with Cap Space chased him: the New York Knicks. Several reports suggest they were unwilling to approach Charlotte’s offer and preferred a short-term offer. The Indiana Pacers were the other team on the tender, but they didn’t have the space that matched what the Hornets put on the table. According to Marc Stein of the New York Times, their offer was near $ 100 million over four years. From a practical point of view, the hornets pay around 47 percent more. Boston, with full bird rights, could have topped that offer to bring him back at the last second. Not only did they decide against it, but they also didn’t seem interested in bringing Hayward back. There’s a reason they brought him to Indiana in the first place.

This should be the worst market for free active ingredients in years thanks to the COVID-induced cap freeze and the 2021-induced frugality. The Hornets blew every other team out of the water to save Hayward. That has common sense. If even the Knicks are unwilling to go along with an offer you’ve made, that offer may not be particularly wise. The Celtics and Pacers didn’t make it either, and they have two of the best front offices in basketball. The hornets make this bet alone.

There’s a reason for that. Injury-prone 30-year-olds just aren’t that valuable on a grand scale unless they immediately contribute to the championship fight. Hayward did this in Boston. That deal could have been justified for the Celtics, considering how close they have come to winning. Charlotte is miles away. The Hornets technically finished ninth in the Eastern Conference last season, but that was a mirage. They had the fourth worst point differential in the NBA last season, a far more predictive measure of team quality than the record.

When Hayward is healthy, he makes them a better team. It is obvious. But how much better is in a much deeper Eastern Conference remains to be seen. The most likely immediate outcome of this deal is another trip to the lottery for Charlotte, but with fewer ping pong balls. Then the real damage to this contract begins.

Hayward guarantees a high salary at 30. Will he be 31? Will he be 33? Probably not, which raises meaningful questions about the timeline. Devonte ‘Graham is 25 years old. Miles Bridges and P. . J. . Washington are 22. LaMelo Ball is 19. If that core is ready to win at a high level, Hayward will not only have past its prime, but will also take the place that could be used for players in their general age group. You won’t be ready to win with Hayward now, he will be past winning age by the time you are ready to go up against the leader. In this sense, the opportunity costs are enormous. Even if Charlotte had waited three years to give that same deal to a similar player, it would have made more sense, given the structure of his current squad.

It has to be argued that the Hornets have to overpay players like Hayward to play in Charlotte. The story supports the term. A year ago they dwarfed the market with a three-year contract with Terry Rozier. But there is an alternative here that the hornets seem to have missed. You didn’t have to sign Hayward at all. The benefits were minimal. The cost is enormous. The rest of the market implicitly told them what a bad idea it was.

It didn’t matter. The Hornets were determined to sign Gordon Hayward, so they tossed caution to the wind and brought him in at a price even higher than what Boston paid to get it to its all-time high. This Celtics deal didn’t work out exactly the way Boston planned. The prospects for this Hornets contract are even worse.

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Gordon Hayward, Boston Celtics, Charlotte Hornets, Utah Jazz