What's next for the teams that didn't sign Gordon Hayward?
While Hayward's decision between the Boston Celtics, Miami Heat and Utah Jazz might have been a factor in the slow pace of transactions league-wide -- just 30 NBA veterans agreed to contracts during the first three days of free agency, as compared to 55 through July 3 last year -- it unquestionably held up business for those three teams as they waited to see whether Hayward would accept their maximum-salary offers.
Of those three, it was Boston that got the good news Hayward was coming. So where do the other two teams turn now?
Utah Jazz
Hayward's departure is devastating for a Jazz team that had just broken through with 51 wins and a victory over the LA Clippers in the opening round of the playoffs as the first fruits of a four-year rebuilding effort.
Utah can look back with regret on the decision to let Hayward solicit offers as a restricted free agent in the summer of 2014, allowing him to sign the deal with a 2017-18 player option that put him back on the market this summer. The Jazz's front office and coaching staff had spent the past three seasons building around Hayward's skills, sp his departure leaves an enormous hole in Utah's lineup.
Having already agreed to a four-year, $52 million deal with restricted free agent Joe Ingles, the Jazz can wait to sign Ingles last, taking advantage of his small $4.2 million cap hold. Still, that leaves Utah with a modest $11.1 million in cap space, presuming the team retains backup point guard Raul Neto (non-guaranteed at the veteran's minimum) and waives forward Boris Diaw (whose $7.5 million salary becomes guaranteed on July 15).
The Jazz could create more cap space by waiving guard Alec Burks and stretching the remaining two years on his contract, reducing his cap hit from $10.9 million to $4.3 million. That would get Utah to $17.7 million in space.
Another possibility for the Jazz is using Diaw in a sign-and-trade transaction, which would allow them to add up to $12.5 million in salary without saddling the other team with any guaranteed salary if completed before July 15. To get competitive for top free agents, Utah would probably have to add another player to Diaw -- possibly forward/center Derrick Favors, making $12 million in the final season of his contract.
Still, with the LA Clippers completing a sign-and-trade with the Denver Nuggets and Atlanta Hawks they're planning to add free agent Danilo Gallinari, it's unclear what free agent might be worth that kind of investment to the Jazz.
Among small forwards on the market, there's a big step down from Gallinari to the other unrestricted options in free agency. Utah's next-best bet might be Rudy Gay, who is coming back from a ruptured Achilles. Former Jazz wing C.J. Miles could be another option and should fit within the team's remaining cap space.
Because of Diaw's contract and Ingles' small cap hold, the Jazz have plenty of options as they look forward. Unfortunately, none of them bode nearly as well for competing in the loaded Western Conference as re-signing Hayward.
Miami Heat
Of the three teams bidding for Hayward, Miami has the clearest path forward. The Heat now figure to bring back a team substantially similar to the one that went 30-11 over the second half of last season.
Fortunately for Miami, the generally slow pace of this summer's free agency enabled James Johnson and Dion Waiters to wait out Hayward's decision. The Heat might have been able to re-sign one or both using non-Bird rights, which would have limited their starting salary to 120 percent of what they made last season, but now Miami is free to use about $29 million in remaining cap space to offer more lucrative deals. The Heat will probably also guarantee Wayne Ellington's $6.3 million salary, which is non-guaranteed through the day after the moratorium.
There still might be a little room for Miami to make another addition to the roster, which also gets Justise Winslow back from shoulder injury that cut his 2016-17 campaign short. Rudy Gay, if he's willing to take less money to play in South Beach and prove his value, could be an interesting target for the Heat.
Though Miami ended the season as one of the NBA's hottest teams, I don't think it's realistic to expect the Heat to play like a 60-win team based on the second half of last season. When projecting forward, the first half of the season still counts. And while the Heat undoubtedly had bad luck early in the season, when they lost eight of their 11 games decided by five points or fewer, they benefited from it in the second half.
From the season's midpoint onward, Miami's 39.0 percent 3-point shooting ranked third in the league according to NBA.com/Stats, which will be difficult to sustain with the current roster. (The Heat shot 33.8 percent from beyond the arc over the season's first 41 games.) Meanwhile, Miami's opponents made just 32.8 percent of their 3-pointers in the second half, the league's fourth-lowest mark. Since defenses have limited control over how well their opponents shoot 3s, that mark will almost certainly regress to the mean.
That point noted, the Heat should still be competitive in a weakened Eastern Conference. Part of the value of adding Hayward would have been offset by the potential loss of Johnson and Waiters. So even though Miami wanted to sign Hayward badly enough to pull out all the stops when he visited the team on Saturday, this news isn't all bad for the Heat.