Gordon Hayward is going to get paid this offseason. Plenty of teams will line up to offer a max contract to Hayward, who made his first All-Star team this past season while averaging a career-high 21.9 points per game. The question that is going to pop up: Will he leave Utah, or will the only place he’s called home during his NBA career be able to hold on to his services?
If the students of Tooele Junior High School have their way, Hayward is going to stick around. The school is located in Tooele, Utah, located about 35 miles away from Salt Lake City. According to the Instagram account of Hayward’s wife, Robyn, a number of students are writing the small forward letters with the hopes of convincing him to re-sign with the Jazz.
Robyn Hayward, Gordon's wife, just shared these letters on IG from a Tooele junior high class asking Hayward to stay. pic.twitter.com/53Mhxsnr9T
— Andy Larsen (@andyblarsen) June 28, 2017
It’d be a shock if this gesture convinces Hayward to stick around, but hey, it’s cool that these students took the time to let Hayward know how important he is to the community and the franchise.
Assuming Chris Paul and Blake Griffin don’t go anywhere, Hayward is the biggest star who could conceivably leave this offseason. While you can make the case that Rudy Gobert is more important to the Jazz, Hayward’s ability to score in a variety of ways is something the team would have a hard time replicating. Teams like Boston and Miami are reportedly going to push hard for him, but as these students showed, Hayward means a ton to the people of Utah.
