When the Charlotte Hornets gave Gordon Hayward a four-year, $120 million deal in mid-November, you could almost hear the collective gasp coming from all corners of the media realm — social, mainstream and otherwise.
Had Hornets owner Michael Jordan lost his mind?
Did general manager Mitch Kupchak forget that the 30-year-old Hayward had missed so much time with injuries these past few seasons in Boston while struggling to return to the All-Star level he’d reached during his Utah days?
The reaction was so intense and widespread that we even decided to hold an emergency roundtable with our national NBA coverage crew at The Athletic to discuss the controversial contract at the time. As I pointed out then, it’s not as if Charlotte was the only team known to be willing to pay him $100-plus million to come to town. Atlanta, among others, was in that financial neighborhood too.
What’s more, that Hayward had turned down a $34.1 million player option in Boston en route to free agency was as strong a sign as any that he knew a robust market awaited. Still, the widespread criticism came.
Yet as Hayward made clear in our wide-ranging phone conversation on Thursday morning, he didn’t lose sleep over all of the chatter that surrounded him when this deal went down.
“I had heard little things here or there (about the reaction to his deal),” Hayward said. “But it’s like I hear it, and it’s in one ear and out the other. I think I know the basketball player that I am, and know what I want to do and what I’m capable of. … It’s just noise to me.”
Besides, it’s tough to hear anything on the outside when you have an infant at home.
Less than four months after Hayward and his wife, Robyn, welcomed their fourth child (and first son, Gordon Theodore) into the world in the middle of the Eastern Conference Finals against Miami in the Orlando bubble, Hayward discussed the many welcome changes that have made up these hectic past few months. From the previously-unreported elective surgery he underwent in early October to alleviate persistent nerve pain in his left foot to the details behind his free agency decision to the early days in Charlotte, where he’s playing like his old self again, Hayward is a happy man these days — for reasons that go well beyond his riches.