Hayward has high hopes for the Jazz. He believes his personal progression mirrors the Jazz’s improvement trajectory — in part because of how many solid players are loaded into each position.

“I expect us to do better than we did last year,” he said, reflecting back on a better-than-expected 36-30 record and first-round playoff appearance in the lockout-shortened campaign.

“I think as a player you kind of want to improve both as a team and individually from year to year,” Hayward added. “I’ve done that from my rookie to sophomore year. Hopefully I’ll do that again this year. Same goes for the team. We missed playoffs first year (39-43 in 2010-11), made it barely the second year, so this year needs to be better than that.”

via Jody Genessy of Desert News