Insider Hints at Possibility of Gordon Hayward Returning to Jazz

The Hornets' forward has been linked to the Jazz.

July 4, 2017 is a day that will live forever in infamy for Utah Jazz fans.

Barbecues, parades, and backyard swimming pools were rudely interrupted as Gordon Hayward spurned the Jazz – not once but twice in the same day – and signed a free-agent contract with the Boston Celtics.

After seven years in Utah, the all-star headed back East to join the Celtics.

Well, everyone knows how badly that turned out for Hayward, who suffered a gruesome injury in his first regular-season game with Boston and never really had the career in Beantown he had hoped, leaving the Celtics after opting out of his final season and joining the Charlotte Hornets in November of 2020 on a four-year deal worth $120 million.

Could the summer of 2022 possibly bring Hayward back to the Jazz?

It’s a possibility, according to The Athletic’s John Hollinger.

Hollinger detailed over the weekend that the Hornets are one of five teams that could potentially target Jazz Center Rudy Gobert in a trade package after Utah flamed out of the playoffs early once again last week, losing in six games to the Dallas Mavericks.

That, along with Gobert’s much-detailed beef with Jazz star Donovan Mitchell, could lead to the fan-favorite center being traded prior to the start of the 2022-23 campaign.

“If there is one team that might be tempted to put together a James Harden-type package for Gobert, (Charlotte) is the one,” Hollinger wrote. “Charlotte badly needs a rim protector and has enough cap flexibility to absorb Gobert’s $170 million salary over the next four years … The obvious crushing irony of this trade is that it would almost certainly involve sending Hayward back to Utah.”

Hollinger goes on to say that Charlotte has the 13th and 15th picks in the 2022 draft and could make a pretty compelling package, as the Jazz traded away their first-round pick and have none at the moment.

The other four teams Hollinger mentions who could possibly be interested in Gobert and have the assets to make a deal include Atlanta, Toronto, New York and Memphis.

While any deal that included Gobert would be a blockbuster this summer, one for Hayward would certainly make waves and give Jazz fans a stomach-churning experience they haven’t had since a different kind of fireworks hit the Utah skies five years ago.

Whether they would embrace his return would be an entirely different and interesting story.