Liberty Links: The entire NBA stopped so Gordon Hayward could pretend he hadn’t made a decision

The Fourth of July is slowly turning into an official NBA holiday, to the point that I might have to ask Adam Silver to push back the start of free agency another week. Cut this nonsense out, man.

To the links!

Gordon Hayward’s agent put on a good show yesterday

ESPN’s Chris Haynes broke the story at 2:17 p.m. This should have been the end of it.

What transpired after Haynes shared this news was absolutely ridiculous. Any reporter with a line on Hayward’s agent came crawling out of the woodwork, sharing forceful language about how he hadn’t made a decision, couldn’t believe this story had been reported already, etc. There was even a nice nugget about how Hayward had allegedly changed his mind four times in the last four days.

Pretty much all of this is (likely) bullshit. Hayward’s camp got caught with their pants down, the wrong person got wind of the story, and news broke before he and his people were able to tell the incumbent team the news. Either that, or his copy editor was too damn slow to get his piece ready to go.

On top of all that, it was a pretty naked exposure of how reporters tend to break stories. Bending over backwards to validate this farce is only necessary if doing your job is reliant on getting the same agent(s) to drop you morsels later for your service. Jazz fans—and Haynes, who got shit on for hours on social media—deserved better than this.

Anyway, whatever, I probably should just make fun of the Celtics for building the first all-wing, no rim-protector team in the history of basketball, but they did get their free agent, so I have to let them have a moment.

If only Furkan Korkmaz would come over

This kid is going to fit in just fine.

Furkan Korkmaz scouting report—Rafael Uehara, Basketball Scouting

Korkmaz’s top skill remains his ability to nail open shots. He’s a sick spot-up shooter with a pure stroke, a high release and a quick trigger who turns in the air and can get his shot off without needing to dip for rhythm in occasions where the pass isn’t perfectly thrown — hitting 43.7% of his 142 three-point shots last season, according to RealGM.

Banvit didn’t put him on the move, having him run off staggered screens or as the back-screener on Spain pick-and-rolls, so his unimpressive pace for a gunner of 6.8 three-point shots per 40 minutes is partly on the team but Korkmaz also needs to learn how to get himself open working the second side. Hopefully he can learn from JJ Redick by watching him up close.

Rafael tends to be bare bones with his scouting reports, but if you want/need a Korkmaz primer, this will do.

The Heat are retiring Chris Bosh’s jersey, and they should

He changed our lives for the better, in a way we never would have imagined, when he joined the Miami HEAT. We will forever be indebted to CB for how he changed this team and led us to four trips to the NBA Finals and two NBA Championships. He is, without a doubt, one of the greatest players in the history of the franchise. The number “1” will never be worn by another player and we can't wait to someday hang his jersey in the rafters.

Along with Shamus Clancy, I am the resident Chris Bosh stan around these parts, and that dude played a much bigger part in the “Heatles” era than he tends to get credit for. Well-deserved honor, and I wish his career hadn’t ended the way it had.

The Nets should change their name to the offer sheets

I don’t know if they’ll ever actually get anybody, but I respect them driving up the prices of 75 percent of all RFAs on the market. Shoot your shot, Sean Marks.