Gordon Hayward: Relationship with Brad Stevens ‘overhyped’
Gordon Hayward ultimately chose to sign with Celtics, but says leading up to and during the free agent process that his relationship with Brad Stevens was blown out of proportion.
Leading up to the start of this year’s NBA free agency period, the overwhelming majority of fans and experts predicted Hayward would end up with the Celtics. Many of those people cited Stevens, who coached Hayward in college at Butler, as the main reason why.
While the result was what nearly everyone expected, Hayward says there was too much focus on the relationship between he and Stevens.
“The relationship between Brad and I has been completely overstated and overhyped from everybody,” Stevens said on Adrian Wojnarowski’s podcast, via ProBasketballTalk.
“I played for Brad for two years. And so it wasn’t like everybody kind of made it seem, like we were besties or something,” he continued.
It would be naïve to think the relationship between Stevens and Hayward wasn’t a factor in Hayward’s decision at all. You could also make an argument perhaps too much was made of it. The truth likely lies somewhere in between. However, when there is low hanging fruit, sometimes it’s hard to resist.
