Jimbo’s Mailbag – Gordon Hayward is Going to Stay

Melissa Majchrzak via utahjazz.com

It’s not the offseason for our resident mailbag artist. Jimbo Rudding provides our regular dose of levity here at Salt City Hoops, and he does it by answering the burning questions to which Jazz fans just must have answers. You can submit questions to Jimbo at mailbag@saltcityhoops.com or by tweeting to @JimboRudding.

Q: I know you’ve answered this before, but I’m going crazy here—is Hayward gonna leave?

@Steeleman77

OK, here’s the skinny—I’m not. Ha ha LOL weight joke!…….but anyway, here’s the deal—what do we know about Gordon Hayward?

• He likes to win.
• He has great hair.
• He’s intelligent.
• For the last four seasons, he’s played with the best center in the league.
• He gets along great with coach Quin Snyder and has a bunch of friends on the Jazz.
• He owns two homes in Utah.
• He knows all the lyrics to “Our House” by Crosby, Stills & Nash and he has no idea how he learned them.
• He was a part of the Jazz rebuild and knows now that the Jazz are committed to aggressively improving.
• His jaw clicks when he eats and he promises he’s going to get it looked at.
• He will never eat at Zupas again.
• He is a husband and father.
• He knows all the US states and capitals.
• He likes video games.

So, what do we know about Gordon Hayward if he chooses to leave the Utah Jazz?

• He doesn’t like to win as much as we thought.
• He isn’t that intelligent even though he does know all the US states and capitols.
• He doesn’t want to play with the best center in the league.
• He felt he needed to find a doctor in another city who can fix his jaw-clicking problem.
• He doesn’t mind not being the number one option on a team.
• He’s still mad about the time right after he was drafted when I saw him at the dodgeball event and I said, “Welcome to the team” and patted his shoulder.

So why would a smart, intelligent, sharp, brainy intellectual leave the good thing he has going in Utah? He wouldn’t. That’s why on July 1 at 12:03 a.m. Gordon Hayward will announce that he intends to sign a max contract with the Jazz. I don’t have any sources on this… well, unless you count Bruce–a really old guy that lives at the end of my street… Actually, no, I’m not going to count him as a source. I just remembered one time he told me he thinks he’s falling in love with the Siri from his phone.

There you have it. Gordon is staying. Don’t you all feel better?

I really hope he stays.

Q: Could you start tweeting Klay Thompson to come to the Jazz? I think he’s bored and under appreciated with Golden State.

@jakebeus

I’m gonna go ahead and say it—Klay Thompson is a less-attractive, rich man’s Kyle Korver. Klay has benefitted his entire career from playing with a sharp-shooting, all-star point guard and two of the best defenders in the league in Iguodala and Green. I mean, he ain’t in the same tier as LeMelo Anthony or CaBron James, my friend… and you can take that to the bank and smoke it!

Before you get all riled up, I’m not saying that Thompson isn’t good at basketball. He is! So stop telling people that I’m saying he isn’t!!! It’s just that, for instance, if you put him on the 76ers or Kings right now, I don’t know that he gets those teams to the playoffs. So we need to stop talking about him like he’s the final piece to a championship.

As for tweeting him, he’s not a free agent this summer so I don’t know how that would help get him on the Jazz. Maybe I’ll throw a few tweets his way anyway. Couldn’t hurt, right? You never know the impact you can have when you throw a little nonsense at someone via the internet. Believe me, I know.

Q: Looks like Boris Diaw is exploring Canyonlands. Any suggestions for his next destination? I’m thinking Big Ben’s Burger Bar in Roy. Yummm.

@mahalkasi1

I saw some of his Instagram posts from Canyonlands. It’s very refreshing to see NBA players getting out and exploring the state they were forced to live in for most of the year. I wish more players would do this. Instead, players just whine and complain about Utah not having big warehouses with loud, techno music and an alcohol trough that they can hang out by late at night. Who needs an alcohol trough when you can visit a ghost town and see where a REAL pig trough used to be??? Ghost towns!

There are a few spots that would definitely raise players’es’s eyebrows if they just took the time to visit. Diaw seems to appreciate natural beauty and there’s PLENTY where that came from…and it comes from Utah. So, here are some destinations I think he’d enjoy:

• The Spanish Fork Festival of Color. Wear white, throw chalk, smile and laugh, accidentally swallow some chalk dust (but hopefully not the red chalk; that’s the poisonous chalk), cough up a wet, chalky substance onto a conference table during a business meeting the next day at work.
• Squaw Peak. Check out Utah County from a high above the valley floor. Take a few pics of the scenery and then maybe take some pics of the kids making out in their cars and tell them that you’re a friend of their dads and he will definitely be seeing your pics tonight.
• Drive the Alpine Loop. Put your blinker on and successfully exit the loop at the correct time.
• Visit Monument Valley (where Forrest Gump stopped running).
• Drive around Antelope Island so that you can say you’ve been there… and that you’ll never go back.
• Take a drive on the Salt Flats. Try going fast. Faster, Boris! WHOOPS! You just went 780 mph! That’s a new land speed record! How’d you do that, Boris? Seems fitting that you did it in a “Land” Rover though. Great job Boris! What an athlete!
• Get a cup of the finest coffee Utah has to offer. You’ll have to drive to Sharon’s house in Blanding. She’s the only one who drinks coffee in Utah. She recently moved here from Reno.
• Visit Dinosaurland in Vernal. Just a heads up—all the dinosaurs are dead. I know, I was bummed too.

Q: What events would have to take place for you to forgive Derek Fisher?

@tj_morrison714

TJ, I’ve already forgiven Derek Fisher. However, that doesn’t mean that I FORGOT what he did to the Jazz, Mavericks, and Rockets though. The dude straight-up lied to three teams to get out of his contracts. How can anyone forget that?

We can all forgive, but none of us can move on. Moving on would imply that we condone that sort of behavior. Could you imagine living in a world where people did bad things that no one had any power to do anything about it, so we all just had to move on? Sounds like no world I would want to live in.

Q: Is it possible for the Warriors to sign the entire West All-Star lineup next year? All other teams could rest all year. That’d be a hoot!

@the6bees

Yeah, they pretty much have an all-star starting five right now. Once they sign Chris Paul, Paul Millsap, Blake Griffin, and Gordon Hayward this offseason, they could have the most talented roster ever assembled. Congrats Golden State. You earned it!

But seriously, a team with LeBron James (small forward for the Cleveland Cavaliers, good dunker, highly athletic, arguably the best there ever was at putting a ball into a hole) can’t even beat the Warriors one time¹. What hope does the rest of the league have? And THAT’S why we all have to just hope one of the Warriors gets injured by falling off a ladder while hanging a REM poster or slips while snow blowing or something. If the Warriors are going to insist on being healthy all year, we may just start calling it the Golden State Basketball Association.

————————————————————————————————————————————————————————-

Thanks for submitting questions, you guys. Remember to tell the lifeguards at the waterslides about Jimbo’s Mailbag. Maybe after you tell them, lean in real close and whisper, “I’m wearing another swimming suit underneath this one.” Make it weird.