How the Utah Jazz survived - and thrived - after the Gordon Hayward departure

Sam Amick | USA TODAY

Show Caption Hide Caption Dunk contest winner Donovan Mitchell discusses his meteoric rise At NBA All-Star weekend, Jazz rookie Donovan Mitchell talks about staying humble while he continues to exceed expectations early in his career.

There is no NBA handbook for this sort of thing.

A star player leaves a small market team that built everything around him, and years of planning and progress are instantly in peril because of one free agency choice. Just ask the Cleveland Cavaliers in 2010, when LeBron James took his talents to Miami. Or the Oklahoma City Thunder in 2016, when Kevin Durant left for the Golden State Warriors. The big city franchises have a way of recovering from losses like these, but there’s nothing more devastating for the underdog organizations than seeing a centerpiece player leave town.

This was the harsh reality facing the Utah Jazz on July 4, when Gordon Hayward’s decision to head for Boston left them twisting in the wind as they made a cross-country flight in search of his possible replacement.

“You always find out more things about yourself and the program and the team that you’re on when you’re challenged, moreso than when everything goes perfect,” said Jazz general manager Dennis Lindsey, who was with coach Quin Snyder and director of basketball operations Steve Schwartz in an Austin, Texas airport when he heard the news. “We didn’t want to be a victim to any one player’s decision.”

Seven months later, the Jazz – winners of 12 of their past 14 games and just two games out of playoff position in the West despite a slew of injuries to core players – have become one of the surprise stories of this season. The only what-if scenarios they worry about now relate to injuries; Rudy Gobert missed a combined 26 games; Rodney Hood was out 15 games before he was traded to Cleveland on Feb. 8; Thabo Sefolosha was lost for the season after requiring surgery on his MCL in January, and they have yet to see third-year guard Dante Exum this season due to a shoulder injury.

Yet still, there’s something growing here that’s going to be good.

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They have the league’s most dominant defensive force in Gobert, a 25-year-old who is under contract through 2021. They have an All-Star caliber talent in rookie guard Donovan Mitchell, the Louisville product who Lindsey landed with the No. 13 pick after sending the No. 24 pick and forward Trey Lyles to Denver on draft night.

They have financial flexibility in the future and a coach in Snyder whose player development program is widely considered among the best in the league. They have Lindsey – he of the 20-year NBA career as an executive in Houston and San Antonio – who has an impressive track record when it comes to selecting and maximizing talent. They’re still a star or two away, with Mitchell’s development playing a pivotal part on that front. But unlike the day when Hayward left, the runway is all theirs again.

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When the news broke via ESPN that Hayward was gone, the Jazz’s braintrust was floored – and then grounded.

They were about to board the private plane in Austin, heading for a Plan B meeting with restricted free agent Otto Porter in Washington, D.C. A day before, Utah’s visit with Hayward in his offseason home in San Diego hadn’t come with any sort of commitment. So, naturally, they kept working during the agonizing wait.

Yet as if losing Hayward in any form wasn’t bad enough, the chaos that came with his decision only made matters worse. His agent, Mark Bartelstein of Priority Sports, denied the multiple reports that Hayward was headed for the Celtics and insisted no final decision had been made. The trio of Jazz officials, left in limbo, decided to stay put while waiting for clarity.

“We didn’t want to jump on the flight and not being able to communicate,” Lindsey remembered. “And then we flew from Austin to Washington D.C., and then we found out the final decision…in D.C. We had the flight back from D.C. to Salt Lake City to kind of collect ourselves.”

That flight, they now know, set the tone for how they would handle life after Hayward. At a time when a pity party would have been understandable, they decided to pivot instead.

Who said you can’t change directions in mid-air?

Schwartz played stenographer, typing out all the ideas and strategies that Lindsey and Snyder shared on his laptop during the trip back home that lasted nearly five hours. They discussed it all, from organizational philosophies that held true with or without Hayward to the ripple effect of his decision on their roster plan.

“We were able to write down things that we wanted to continue to be, and then a few things that, with some personnel losses, that we had to bring back to the group, and some things that we wanted to also add or include,” Lindsey said. “It gave us time to reflect, be a little philosophical if you will.”

They had already had key players in the fold, as Utah traded with Minnesota for point guard Ricky Rubio and re-signed forward Joe Ingles (four years, $52 million) on July 1. Gobert would become their new franchise centerpiece, and who knew what this all might mean for Mitchell’s re-evaluated role. Sefolosha, the veteran guard who they would sign two weeks later, remained a priority in free agency.

There was much work to be done on the development front too.

Rubio would need to improve his finishing. Forward Derrick Favors had to get healthy again so that he could return to form.

The to-do list went on from there: Improve Gobert’s free-throw shooting; help Ingles with his playmaking and his fancy new floater; determine Mitchell’s developmental timeline.

“Some (ideas) were reiterating thoughts that we previously had, because we knew this was a possibility,” Lindsey said. “Some of the things were filling in the voids that were created, and some of the things were things that we always wanted to do with the club, no matter whether a free agent stayed or not. … All those things were just swirling around.”

A day after they touched down, the Jazz would take the high road yet again. In a move that is not the industry norm, Lindsey, Snyder and team president Steve Starks issued statements thanking Hayward for his time in Utah and wishing him well.

“We didn’t want to be vindictive in any way, because I think the whole league watches in on (these situations in) the NBA – the teams, the agents, the players – so we were sincere in thanking him and wishing him the best,” Lindsey said.

Sincere and smart.

For teams like the Jazz that will always face an uphill climb when it comes to contending, the little things can go a long way. Players tend to notice how their brethren get treated on the way out, meaning there’s no upside in dishing dirt. And as was the case with Mitchell, the agent wound up being the one spreading the word about how the Jazz treat their players.

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It made no sense for Mitchell to work out for the Jazz leading into the June draft, let alone to make them the first stop on his workout tour. Little did he know he’d be helping restore hope among their fanbase just a few months later.

Utah’s 51-win season with Hayward meant they’d have the No. 24 pick, and Mitchell – the long and explosive talent who could shoot, score at the rim and play defense – was widely seen as a surefire lottery selection after leading the Cardinals to the NCAA tournament. But after Mitchell interviewed with the Jazz at the Chicago combine, he decided to start his workout tour there too.

His agent, Ty Sullivan of the Creative Artists Agency, swore to Mitchell that a Jazz visit would be worth his time. Snyder’s Euro-style motion offense was seen as a good fit for his skill-set, and the list of players who improved significantly while in their program grew longer every year. There was the kind of stability that young prospects need, with Lindsey hired in 2012 and Snyder added two years later.

No one knew how he might get there, but Mitchell decided to leave that part to chance.

“My biggest thing is that you never know what could happen,” Mitchell said. “You just never know. I’m not big-timing them, saying ‘Oh, I’m not going to work out for you guys.’ God puts people in certain places and gives them certain opportunities for a reason, and I’m glad I made that choice to come here and work out because I fell in love with it as soon as I got here.”

The workout only made the Jazz want Mitchell even more.

“We’re not ever sure we can help someone improve, but certainly if they have certain kinds of characteristics – an open mindset, a capacity for work, a love for the work and competition – those are usually the guys who get there,” Lindsey said. “The problem is those characteristics are hard to identify typically, just because you don’t have that much time with the kid.

“The workout and the second interview provided us with even more motivation – some would say even desperation – to move up (in the draft to get him). We knew that we wanted to move up.”

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The fact that Mitchell has already improved significantly since arriving is hardly a surprise, as this has long since become the Jazz way.

“Necessity is the mother of invention, and we have to get guys better,” Lindsey said of their player development. “(Former Jazz point guard) George Hill had a career year at 31 years old for us last year. (Jazz forward) Joe Ingles was a substitute, a backup, in the Euroleague, and he comes here and back ends his way into our roster and rotation and then as a starter (before signing a four-year, $52 million deal with the Jazz in July).

“Look, any time you help a player get better, agents and other players notice, and so when you help Rudy Gobert go from the 27th pick (in 2013) and in the D-League his first year to an All-Pro level center, that his body has gotten better, his skill set has gotten better, his mindset has become even more professional, I think people take notice. Again, that’s where we have to create an advantage.”

And what an advantage it’s proving to be.

“From Quin’s early days (as an assistant) at Duke, and certainly (as head coach) at Missouri, he talked a lot about development,” Lindsey continued. “In San Antonio, I thought we had a really good program, from talented coaches to facility to identifying characteristics that you think players have that will allow them to improve. You can’t replicate Tim Duncan, Gregg Popovich, R.C. Buford, Chip Engelland, Tony Parker, Manu Ginobili, but I think what you can do is certainly learn the lessons that those guys showed all of us every day in how they approached the job.”

Said Ingles: “The time and effort that we put in daily to be better, individually and as a team, not just by ourselves but the way we do it as a group as well, it's something I've never experienced.”

***

Hayward is long gone now, dealing with a recovery of his own after that brutal ankle fracture he suffered against Cleveland in the season opener. And so the Jazz move on, buoyed by their belief that – playoffs or not – something good is growing here.

“It’s a credit to the organization, because a lot of teams – after what happened in the summer – would just fall off,” Mitchell said. “Dennis did a great job finding a bunch of guys who he knew would play well together. And to this day, I try and figure out, like how did he see all of us guys working together? How did he know that Royce (O’Neale) would come in and add great minutes. How did he know Ricky was going to come in and do his thing? How did he know Joe would fit in? There’s so many different pieces that he added in this offseason, Thabo as well and even Jae Crowder (who they landed via trade from Cleveland at the Feb. 8 trade deadline). And now we’re all in sync, and it’s amazing when you look back at it like that.”

(Correction - an earlier version of this story said the Jazz met with Hayward in his hometown of Brownsburg, Indiana. This has been updated).

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