We’d like to extend a big Wellesley welcome to new Boston Celtics forward Gordon Hayward and his family, who moved into town over the summer. Yes, a $128M contract can certainly buy you a nice new multimillion home in Wellesley with some decent privacy and lots of bathrooms to accommodate nearly the whole team if it comes over.
Not sure, but maybe my being at that notorious Utah Jazz-Celtics game this past season — during which now-former Celtics former Jae Crowder aired his displeasure when local fans gave Hayward a big hand in hopes of encouraging him to sign here as a free agent (as he ultimately did) — had something to do with Hayward heading to the ‘burbs.
Hayward has given local kids shooting hoops in their driveway a thrill by running past (hard to miss his 6-8 frame) or zipping by in his Porsche. He’s welcome to shoot hoops anytime at our neighborhood hoop (shown above), as long as he doesn’t mess up the duct tape holding the backboard together.
Wellesley of course is home to a number of Boston Swell-tics, including Coach Brad Stevens (Hayward’s college coach at Butler), GM Danny Ainge and assistant coach Micah Shrewsberry, and has been home to past Celtics like Ray Allen. I’ve angled recently to get Hayward’s Celtics teammate Kyrie Irving to move here, too.
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Why would Kyrie move to Wellesley when he lives in the far superior and far more elite town of Weston? We had a joke growing up in Weston that was as follows…..”Your from Wellesley? I guess your parents couldn’t afford to live in Weston”…..or Dover or Concord for that matter.