[ad_1]
SALT LAKE CITY – When Gordon Hayward walked out of the visitors' locker room on Friday night at Vivint's Smart Home Arena, through the tunnel and out onto the floor for warm-ups, the boos rained down from the fans.
Every time he touched the ball in warm-ups, the boos came again. The boos came when Hayward's Boston Celtics jogged out to the floor before tipoff, Hayward the last one to come out. They came out loud when it was announced during introductions. The sellout crowd of 18.306 – including one fan who had learned an old Utah Jazz No. 20 so the nameplate read "COWARD" instead of "HAYWARD" – booed so loudly that you could not even hear his name.
They booed every time he got the ball. They booed when he checked into the game. They booed when he checked out of the game. They made it when they were shot (though, to be fair, you could make some scattered applause, too). They applauded during the first quarter when Hayward collided with his teammate Joe Ingles at midcourt and fell to the ground. They booed and laughed when Hayward airballed an open jumper from point-blank range in the second quarter.
And in final minute of the fourth quarter, the Jazz had finally pulled away in what would become a 123-115 victory, Hayward went to the free throw line. And Jazz Fans Chanted in Unison how they really felt about Hayward, 16 months after he jilted the small-market franchise for the bright lights of the Boston Celtics.
"WE DO NOT MISS YOU!" they chanted. "WE DO NOT MISS YOU!"
"Hayward said with a shrug after his first game back in the city where he spent the first seven years of his career. "It's part of the game." I was getting on the ball in the warm-ups, I was getting booed, that was kind of funny to me. you're in the game, you're not worried about that, that kind of disappears. "
When Hayward left Utah, the bread of Jazz fans was acute. As you can see, the Jazz has turned into an NBA afterthought – a team that missed the playoffs in five of six years, including one season where they won only 25 games – a force that won 51 games a playoff series in his final season.
Then he left. Utah, an underdog place to begin with, felt jilted. He could have been the face of the franchise in the city where his first child was born. Instead, he went somewhere else. Him leaving did not feel like a simple business decision; it felt personal. Some Jazz fans performed the bizarre 21st-century sports cleansing ritual of taking Hayward Jazz jersey, dousing it in gasoline, burning it, and then posting the video on social media.
As Nobel Peace Prize winner Elie Weisel once wrote, "The opposite of love is not hate, it's indifference."
Utah 's feelings towards Gordon Hayward, and the way they are rapidly moving away from adoration to antipathy, displayed that.
And then the most unlikely thing happened.
A charismatic named kid Donovan Mitchell moved into town.
And the Utah Jazz moved on.
The jersey-burning ritual is as much of a part of modern-day sports as the emotion-filled return game. It's something a star player must go through when he leaves a place that he once called home. When LeBron left Cleveland the first time, the fans jumped, and then the Cavaliers went from a 61-win team to the Eastern Conference semifinals to a 19-win team. When Kevin Durant left Oklahoma City, fans burned his jerseys, and the Thunder went on to a 55-win team that made the Western Conference Finals to a 47-win team that lost in the first round. When Shaq left Orlando – well, it was too early for the social-media-performative-jersey-burning-ritual, but the Magic went from a 60-win team that made the Eastern Conference Finals to a 45-win team that got bounced in the first round.
That's not to say Hayward was the equal of any of those players.
But because of the way he jilted Utah, the emotions felt the same.
After Hayward left, the Jazz turned from a 51-win team that made the Western Conference semifinals to a 48-win team that made the Western Semifinals Conference.
Basically, the same team.
Only with a new, younger, more explosive and more charismatic star player at the helm.
"I do not think you can deny the timing," David Locke, the Jazz's radio play-by-play announcer, told me about why Mitchell has so revitalized the Jazz and their fans. "Our hearts have been ripped out, stomped on." "Gordon's leaving was crushing to the fan base." And it was not just that Gordon left that he left somewhat heartlessly, without a thank you, without a recognition of any commitment, without mentioning a teammate in his Player's Tribune article. The fan base felt as though they'd just been used. So here came this kid with this happiness and excitement to him – even before he started playing great last year. Go back to Summer League, right after Gordon left, and the crowd's already attached to him. There's a thing that was perfect here. "
And so, even though Jazz fans felt like it was on the way back on Friday night, it did not feel like the boos were all that anger-filled. Instead, it was almost like a rite of pbadage for Jazz fans. Sure, they were deeply hurt when Hayward left last year. But things have changed since then. They still felt compelled to boo him, like this The Jazz had moved on a new star. And there was the empathy that came with Hayward 's gruesome leg of his last game, in his first game for his new team.
"It's been a long time," head coach Quin Snyder said. "It's a long time ago."
What it felt like on Friday night was a less than a glorious display of fandom than a reconnection between two ex-lovers – two people who had some great times together back in the day both become better for it.
"We've all lived homecomings of spells," Celtics head coach Brad Stevens said. "Everybody handles the way they handle it." I think it's time to get easier and easier.
And so Hayward smirked in warm-ups when the fans booed him. He smirked during introductions. He did not smirk during the game – he was too focused on doing his job – but he did not talk about it during postgame interviews. This was a place that gave him warm feelings.
"I spent seven years here," he said. "I've gotten a little bit, I'm growing up, coming in as a rookie." married, had a couple kids, had one of them here, we were not very happy here we were not very happy of the playoffs. "
The cameras switched off, and Hayward, a VIP lounge in the bowels of the arena. Hayward hugged the Jazz's head of public relations and chatted. Hayward's wife, pregnant with their third child, pointed at the husband towards a security guard, he had been with, and Hayward walked over and gave him a hug.
The emotions were complicated. But for a moment, it felt like Gordon Hayward was back home.
[ad_2]
Source link
