David Locke Talks Gordon Hayward

Will Quin Snyder be able to get through to Gordon Hayward in a way that Tyrone Corbin just couldn’t? Could they have a bond or chemistry that’s way more positive?
Well, it might be as important as just being far enough removed from Brad Stevens, right? I mean, Gordon had this incredible relation with Brad Stevens, and a really good relationship with Jeff Hornacek. And you know, I think, just maybe the door closing on the possibility of playing for those two and moving forward may be as important for Gordon as anything else.

But I think there’s definitely a hope that, you know, Quin can relate to Gordon. Gordon’s not an easy one, though. He’s a natural doubter…His first instinct is to not necessarily believe what you’re telling him, and he’s not an easy one to coach in that regard…

I think that it’s not an easy task that you’re asking for Quin with Gordon, but I do think hopefully he’ll be more successful. [Hayward] and Ty just, for whatever reason, they never clicked, and that was obvious. You know, it could simply just be as simple as circumstances, that Ty takes, you know, he’s post, he’s still, shortly removed from Brad Stevens. The Jerry Sloan-Deron Williams thing happened, and it’s just kind of a mess, and Gordon just never was connected to Ty the way he needed to be.

You’ve shared a lot of Subway sandwiches with Gordon. Does he want to come back to Utah?
I think so, and I think he wants to come back more with Quin than he did with Ty, frankly. I think that relationship wasn’t great. Nothing sinister; I just don’t think that they ever really connected…

They just didn’t connect. They just, and Gordon didn’t feel as though, you know, Ty put in a bunch of stuff later in the year and it opened some things up for Gordon, and that’s where he started to have some success. But you know, Gordon really likes to play the space, and not a lot of stuff for our wing players create space. Snyder’s whole offense is based on space.

Last year was not a good year for him, both emotionally, he didn’t play particularly well. He didn’t deal with it particularly well…[but] he was bothered by the losing on a year when, in which he very easily could’ve just been totally numbers-oriented.

On living up to the expectations that come with a big contract and the next step
I like Gordon an awful lot. He’s, frankly, just as surly as Deron in some other elements in the kind of personality that make him at times difficult. The key is, he is a good person who’s very conscientious of things around him, and I’m concerned on him [in terms of the mental pressure that comes with] a max contract…

He’s gotta find a way to be more charming than he is with the media. That’s a step in his career.

But I would also say, I’m gonna jump to his defense for a second. He’s [improved]…He has taken himself from a bench-playing, you know, wing player into a formidable piece that clearly a franchise in the NBA has deemed important enough to roll out stupid money for.

Another one of Hayward’s frustrations last year was…
Locke: [Another thing] that Gordon was really frustrated with last year…was we never broke the system for a matchup. There are guys out there that Gordon thinks he can beat, and he never got to do it. Think about that. We never do that, right? Have you ever seen us change what we were running for a mismatch?

Craig Bolerjack: Dennis [Lindsey] let Ty just work, and try to bring these guys along. But yes, I think that’s probably some of the frustration that, and again, you can’t speak for, I won’t speak for Dennis, but from my observation, there wasn’t nights when change was made for matchup purposes.

Locke: Let’s make sure we understand that we’re not necessarily being critical of Ty, because there was a, there’s a philosophy behind that…I’m just sharing an individual player’s frustration.

Boler: Don’t you agree though, David, that at times they did run it to perfection, but the shots just weren’t made?

Locke: Yeah, you know, it was interesting when I was doing that research last night, we had three of the 10 worst catch-and-shoot players in the NBA: Trey Burke, Gordon Hayward and Marvin Williams.

One possible reason Hayward’s stats were the way they were last year
I don’t see a lot of scripts right now where free agency’s adding a lot of wins to us. I think the wins are gonna be in growth from internally, and if Quin Snyder somehow has a modernized offensive system that matches our players better than we had last year, and, which we, you know, really played l–incredibly methodically…

We used the most possessions of any team in the league in the final 12 seconds of the shot clock, which is very difficult to do when you don’t have guys that can make plays.

That’s part of the reason why Gordon’s numbers are where they are. If you can push Gordon’s possessions earlier into the shot clock with a little bit more space, I think you’ll have a much more successful player. (1280; H/T @clarkpojo and @theshums)

Unintentional Dirty Quote Machines
** Spencer Checketts: What’s up, man?
David Locke: Not much. Sorry. My apologies for not connecting last segment. And you know, I’m already, would be scared to spend three hours trying to hold my own with Spence, Boler.
** Checketts to Locke regarding FantasyCon: It would be right down your alley.
Locke: Yeah, ’cause I’m an out of the box guy. I mean, that’s who I am, I’m, you know, that’s…
Checketts: That’s what I’m saying.
Craig Bolerjack: Out of the box.