Gordon Hayward has been in the free agent spotlight since day one of the offseason and he has finally made his decision.
On Tuesday night, the 27-year-old announced through his Twitter account that he was heading to the Boston Celtics next season.
Hayward decided to let the fans know where he was heading by putting together a piece for The Players’ Tribune called “Thank You, Utah”.
Throughout his story, Hayward touches on the process he went through as he narrowed his decision down to Miami, Boston and Utah, and discusses how he wanted to be the person to break the news to everyone despite it being 2017. Here’s part of his story from The Players’ Tribune.
"What’s crazy is — before I even had a chance to make my decision, before I had a chance to sit down and write this, and before I even had a chance to talk about it with the people I love — I was already reading reports about where I was going. And I guess that’s just the way things work, in 2017. But I’m sorry it had to work out like that.
This was a life-changing decision for me and my family, and something we took really seriously. And from the very start of this process, one thing stood out as important: I knew that I wanted the fans and the organizations to hear my decision directly from me.
After seven years in Utah, I have decided to join the Boston Celtics."
After going into depth about how much everyone in the organization and the fans meant to him, Hayward gets down to business and shares exactly why he decided to choose the Boston Celtics and the things that won him over, including coach Brad Stevens, who happened to be Hayward’s coach at Butler.
"There were so many great things pulling me in that direction. There was the winning culture of Boston, as a city — from the Sox, to the Pats, to the Bruins. There was the special history of the Celtics, as a franchise — from Russell, to Bird, to Pierce, and it goes on. There was the amazing potential of this current Celtics roster, as a team — from ownership, to the front office, to a talented roster with Isaiah, and Al, and everyone else. And of course, there was Coach Stevens: Not just for the relationship that we’ve built off the court — but also for the one that we started building on the court, all of those years ago, in Indiana.
And that unfinished business we had together, back in 2010, when I left Butler for the NBA … as far as I’m concerned, all of these years later, we still have it:
And that’s to win a championship."
Hayward’s deal is expected to be worth $128 million over four years and you can bet the Celtics are happy to have him on board.
You can read Hayward’s entire article on The Players’ Tribune by clicking here.
(H/T Twitter/gordonhayward, The Players’ Tribune)
