"We All Had Too Many Agendas" - Gordon Hayward Opened Up And Spilled The Beans About The Real Reason Things Didn't Work Out In Boston

Of all the "what ifs" throughout Celtics history (and there are a lot), without a doubt one of the most frustrating "what ifs" in recent history has to be the entire Hayward/Kyrie era Celts. Specifically the 2018-19 season, but really the whole tenure. To go from this

to what we actually got once the games started was quite the kick to the dick. Hayward's injury 5 seconds into his Celtics career which ultimately changed everything, Kyrie doing all the Kyrie shit that has come to be the norm not the exception, a weird balancing of two timelines, looking back all you can say is "what if"?

I bring this up because Gordon Hayward himself finally sat down and broke everything down of what went wrong with that 2018-19 team. We talk a lot about super teams in today's NBA world, and for my money that 2018-19 team might have been one of the greatest collections of individual talent we've had since the Big 3 days. It was LOADED

We had just lived through Tatum/Brown leading the Celts to the ECF, so naturally our collective thought was that adding Kyrie/Hayward/Morris etc to that group was going to take them to the next level. 

Yet, after 20 games, the Celts were 10-10. In January, we had players fighting each other 

At the All Star game, this happened

and we all know what happened next. The Celts finished 49-33, swept the Pacers in the first round, and then Kyrie essentially tanked the Bucks series and then left for the Nets. 

So I was interested in hearing Hayward, someone who was at the center of a lot of this drama as he tried to come back from injury, talk about this era and what the hell went wrong. 

Yeah, that sounds about right. A lot of "me" and now a whole lot of "we" with that group. The thing is, you sort of understood where everyone was coming from. Marcus Morris thought he was the man, but it came at a time where he was playing some GREAT basketball to start the year in 2018-19. Terry Rozier was gunning for his next contract, and the Celts probably should have traded him earlier but couldn't since they were essentially being held hostage by Kyrie's free agency (Terry was obviously later traded for Kemba once Kyrie dipped). The Jays had shown that they should probably be the focus moving forward, but now had to reintegrate the two building blocks that were the original plan the prior year before getting hurt.

It was a giant clusterfuck that ultimately blew up in all of our faces.

I say all this because I want you to listen to what Hayward describes in this clip, and then compare that to the 2023-24 Boston Celtics, another team many put in that "superteam" group. Compare that, to this

"I wanted us to get in the room and talk about it," Tatum told ESPN. "We all are human and have feelings, and I opened the floor and basically said, 'There's six of us. Only five can play at one time. One of us is not going to finish the game all the time.

"Whether it's fair or not, me and JB are probably going to always start, and always finish the game. But we have to be held to a different standard and be able to be coached differently. Whether it's KP and Al, one of you guys may not finish a game, and you have to be OK with that."

Tatum has openly talked about the impact Horford has had on him. And he said their relationship was a significant factor in wanting to get everyone in a room before the season began, to make sure Horford -- or whoever wasn't starting -- wouldn't feel isolated or left out.

"It had a lot to do with Al," Tatum said. "I got so, so much respect for him, and knowing that he might be the guy coming off the bench and I didn't want it to just be a thing where we got new guys in, and it's like, 'All right, Al you're coming off the bench.'

"I know how much he's meant to this organization, how much he's meant to me. And just to have that talk … basically we got six starters, and one of us has to come off the bench on any given night. I give Al a lot of credit."

"This was a time where, if you're not OK with it, let's talk about it," Tatum said. "I didn't want everybody to, before the season started, say, 'Yeah, I'm, I'm fine with it. Whatever.' And then, you know, we'll lose a couple games, and then things build up.

"It offered a time for us to all be on the same page and express that we were OK. … It was a great meeting."

I don't think you could be further from the 2018-19 drama Hayward talked about if you tried. Instead, it felt more like this

Maybe part of it is the fact that Jaylen/Tatum lived through that 2018-19 team so they know how to lead this time around. Maybe it's because the other main pieces aren't Kyrie Irving and a recovering Gordon Hayward. Maybe part of it is the way Brad Stevens has built his team after trying to manage that disaster. Whatever you want to attribute it to, it's crazy to see what a difference there seems to be in the mindsets between this group and what we saw the last time the Celts were loaded with talent 5 years ago. 

There was no excuse for that 2018-19 group to underachieve the way they did given the talent and coaching they had, but it goes to show that if you aren't collectively all on the same page, it's not going to work. If anyone, especially one or two main rotation pieces doesn't completely buy into what the team is trying to accomplish, things won't work. 

Who knows, if Hayward never destroys his ankle or Kyrie is healthy for that first playoff run, maybe things turn out differently. But for me, I'm glad this clip exists. It's the perfect thing to show the 2023-24 Celts to remind them how not to act. That's been one of the best parts of their NBA best 26-6 start, the fact that we don't seem to have even an ounce of the same drama as that frustrating 2018-19 team.

Here's to hoping they have a much better ending as well.