Ben Anderson: Gordon Hayward cements his place as Utah's public enemy No. 1


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SALT LAKE CITY — It can be difficult to anticipate how a fan base will react to a player leaving a team.

Sometimes, players who weren’t particularly well liked by a fan base can leave, and become well-liked over time. Greg Ostertag comes to mind for the Utah Jazz. The one-time scapegoat for the team’s shortcomings in the ’90s has since become a hapless, yet lovable figure from the glory days of the team.

Others are beloved while they suit up for the home team and understand a happy separation is the best for both sides. Think Paul Millsap. Millsap embodied the under-respected, often overlooked nature of the Jazz themselves. His hardworking, always competitive, get by on grit and toughness matched the culture set by Jerry Sloan, and was immediately embraced by Jazz fans. However, when the Jazz turned to younger players on the roster and Millsap sought out a change of scenery, the divorce was amicable, and Millsap’s success has been celebrated, though envied during his four All-Star appearances in Atlanta.

Some players disappear into the wind, not forgotten, but neither celebrated nor missed. Al Jefferson’s move to Charlotte felt more like an inevitability than a tough decision. His time in Utah felt like an employee with a 9-to-5 job. He showed up, clocked in, did his job, and clocked out, and was gone.

Others spark a sense of controversy. Carlos Boozer and more so Deron Williams both left the Jazz with a sour taste in their mouths, but have since found favor with a large portion of the fan base, remembered for the good they did while they donned a Jazz uniform. Additionally, both became lesser evils with the arrival of future Jazz unfaithful.

And others, well, some others become a scourge, a super enemy around which the fan base and the team unite and use as motivation to overcome any setback the departure of that former fan favorite may have caused.

Kanter: Still drawing boos

For the past three seasons, that player has been Enes Kanter. After 3½ years spent developing with the team, Kanter, just before the 2015 NBA trade deadline, discreetly asked the Salt Lake Tribune’s Aaron Falk to write a story about Kanter’s decision to leave the team. Days later, Kanter was shipped to Oklahoma City, ripping Salt Lake City seemingly any chance he got.

Kanter stood alone atop the Jazz fans' most hated list among former players in the league, still drawing boos every time he returns to Utah, with the currents players on the Jazz roster showing obvious hostility toward him when they match up.

However, Kanter can finally remove that burden from his shoulders and place it squarely on the back of Gordon Hayward to carry, where it will remain for the foreseeable future.

Hayward takes No. 1 spot

Hayward’s departure from the Jazz was as poorly handled as any free agent exit in the NBA in recent memory, holding the Jazz hostage through most of the first week of free agency, tying up their salary cap space to attract his potential replacement, should he leave. By the time he left, the market for top-tier free agent wings had dried up significantly and the Jazz were left looking elsewhere for suitable replacements.

His July 4 announcement tied Jazz fans to their phones over the holiday weekend, awaiting his decision, which apparently his camp leaked to reporters across the country several hours before informing the Jazz of his decision via an article in the Players Tribune.

Hayward’s agent Mark Bartelstein admitted the one-time All-Star didn’t call Jazz management or ownership to inform them of his decision personally.

Combined, all of those parts of Hayward’s departure pushed his future standing with the fan base toward the top of their least-celebrated list. Then it got worse.

The Celtics' seemingly endless stockpile of affordable contracts, future assets and current talent became nearly depleted when they traded All-Star guard Isaiah Thomas, do-it-all forward Jae Crowder, rookie Ante Zizic and the highly touted Brooklyn Nets' first-round draft pick for the Cavaliers' Kyrie Irving — a mega-talented but potentially highly flawed point guard who took over as the face of the Celtics' franchise just 49 days after Hayward signed in Boston. Hayward’s new team, while talented, doesn’t appear to have the obvious championship potential it had going into the summer.

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Hayward was unquestionably the face of the Jazz, even if Rudy Gobert may have been the team’s most critical player. Now, Hayward appears to have traded that for a lesser role in a bigger city.

Along those lines, in a podcast with ESPN’s Adrian Wojnarowski, Hayward admitted that the ease of winning in the Eastern Conference played a role in his decision-making. Hayward told Wojnarowski, “There is a sense that it's probably a smarter thing as far as you're not going to have to battle it out with all these teams just to make it to the second round, make it to the third round, giving yourself a better chance against a Golden State. So it definitely crosses your mind, 100 percent.”

While it’s a defensible position, it doesn’t harken back to the competitiveness of Sloan and Millsap that runs through the culture of the Jazz.

Late last week, after an arduous process completing the deal for Irving, Boston officially welcomed both Irving and Hayward at an introductory press conference. Hayward again drew the ire of Jazz fans when he remarked that Celtics fans “know a little bit more” than other NBA fans.

Out of context, Hayward’s comments appeared to be directed at Jazz fans, favoring his new city over the old.

In reality, Hayward was simply stating that Celtics fans are nuanced enough in the game for him to realize that any complaints they may have about him as a player were well-formulated, should they arise.

It didn’t matter.

With a large number of sports fans getting their news in 140 character tweets, Hayward’s comments seemed squarely aimed at the heart of Jazz fans, where they landed, and will remain for the rest of his stretch in the NBA in an opposing team’s uniform.

Short of Hayward landing back on a Jazz roster, the options for Hayward to find himself back in the favor of Jazz fans appear nonexistent. Should he struggle in Boston and find equal, or less success than he did in Utah, fans will celebrate the belief that he made the wrong decision leaving.

Should he go onto better things, making multiple All-Star games and competing for championships, the envy of Jazz fans will prevent him from being welcomed back either.

Perhaps Hayward’s only option to relieve himself from atop the Jazz fan base’s least favorite list is to be replaced by a greater evil. As he did for Kanter, a current Jazz player could leave the team on uglier terms than Hayward did and assume their place atop the fan list of unfavorables.

Until then, every move and comment Hayward makes will be highly scrutinized, and Hayward has firmly claimed the title of public enemy No. 1 in Utah. Ben Anderson is a contributor at KSL.com, follow him on Twitter @BensHoops.

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