The Utah Jazz have been living through some pretty lean years of late as the rebuild process has been taking a while to come to fruition. This process was made longer as the Jazz unloaded Paul Millsap and Al Jefferson, then followed that up by taking on the likes of Richard Jefferson and Andris Biedrins.
Granted the move to acquire those two was basically an accounting manoeuvre meant to facilitate the acquisition of draft picks and future salary cap room. Room under the cap that now must be considered for use on burgeoning star and restricted free-agent Gordon Hayward.
The Jazz do have a solid, young nucleus to work around. In addition to Derrick Favors, the Jazz have Alec Burks, Trey Burke and the newly drafted Australian basketball prodigy Dante Exum to build around but at some point Jazz management needs to pay the talent they have in order to keep some of it's better players.
This process is going to have to start here with Hayward and it is going to be a costly commitment, no question about it.
The Charlotte Hornets have offered Hayward a four year max-contract worth $63 million plus a bit of a poison pill in the form of a 15% trade kicker.
Now let's get this out of the way right of the start. Hayward is definitely not worth this kind of money. He is a second-tier free-agent who can certainly help a team but he isn't going to lift a team to championship contention.
Hayward is not a prolific scorer or shooter as evidenced by his 16.2 ppg and 45.2 true field goal percentage. His rebounding averages of 5.2 are misleading as he is a perimeter rebounder who relies on positioning and fortunate bounces to pad those stats.
In four seasons in the Association he has been a starter in just over half his games. He hasn't made a single all-star game appearance and his lone playoff appearance was a quick one as the Jazz lost in four straight games on the back of Hayward's unremarkable 7.3 ppg averages and dismal 18.2 field goal percentage.
Even with these obvious shortcomings, Hayward seemed to have little trouble in procuring a max-dollar deal and thus forced the Jazz's hand in making a decision on paying him moving forward.
On paper it doesn't seem like a good investment for Utah to match this deal; however, basketball games aren't played on spreadsheets. It certainly wouldn't mark the first time that a player is signed to a contract that exceeds his actual worth.
In fact the Utah Jazz have little choice in this matter, they pretty much have to match this four-year offer here. Not only do they need start taking steps to hold onto their young home-drafted talent but they actually need to spend the money too.
The Jazz are so far below the salary cap that they must spend to reach the salary cap floor. They could sign a couple aging, non impact players to short-term deals but why not take that money and earmark it for a long term investment on Hayward.
If the Jazz have any hope of keeping some relevancy in the ultra-competitive West then they must commit some dollars to doing it. Matching this offer for Hayward is going to happen. Albeit the Jazz will take every minute of their three days to do it, it will get done in the end and it will have been the right decision.