Reports came out on Tuesday afternoon that Gordon Hayward had made his long-awaited free agency decision and would be heading to Boston. The news was first reported by ESPN’s Chris Haynes and was confirmed by multiple others, including USA Today’s Sam Amick and The Vertical’s Chris Mannix.
That seemed like it meant Hayward, this year’s top free agent, would be heading to the East’s top seed from a year ago as the Celtics tried to take down the Cavaliers in the East. The news caused mass celebration in Boston, from fans to players, as they landed a much needed additional star on the wing to complement Isaiah Thomas and Al Horford.
Thomas was among those to first react to the news, posting a tweet that simply had the eyes emoji after the reports first emerged.
https://twitter.com/Isaiah_Thomas/status/882303399345172482
Thomas’ wife then posted a video of IT dancing around his house while listening to Drake and Future’s “Big Rings.”
https://twitter.com/OnlyInBOS/status/882309423015833600
The problem with this is, while Thomas was celebrating, Hayward’s agent was denying the reports that a decision had been made by the star swingman. Hayward was then reported to be considering delaying his decision even further, as his agent said the leaks had forced them to regroup.
Hayward's agent Mark Bartelstein on whether final word is coming today: "That was the goal, but now we've got to kind of regroup here a bit"
— Adam Himmelsbach (@AdamHimmelsbach) July 4, 2017
This hasn’t quite reached DeAndre Jordan levels of insanity, as we don’t have Rudy Gobert and Ricky Rubio locking Hayward in a house, but it’s certainly one of the stranger major free agency stories in recent memory. We’ll just have to stay tuned for a bit longer to find out what Hayward’s true decision is.
