It's simple. They cater to simplistic fans' desires as a marketing ploy instead of caring to win.
But the Jazz PR team created this mess. They pimped Hayward to the fanbase (although a few of us weren't having it).
They constantly coddled Hayward to be what they were telling the fanbase he already was.
David Locke, Matt Harpring, et all repeated the campaign talking points over and over and apologized for Hayward so many times, "that was great form on that miss" "he's having a really bad shooting night but he's actually really good (your eye's are deceiving you)."
You, the fans, have been dicked over by the Jazz PR team. I'm sorry you believed them. I wanted to believe them, but I just couldn't do it. I've been a Hayter for 90% of HowdyDoody's stay here (I tried to get on board for a second but I just couldn't sustain it).
But the thing that drove me crazy was the propaganda. Thankfully that propaganda is over. Hayward is a better player now than he was originally, but he's still not a max player. Thankfully, we don't have to listen to that advertisement anymore.
BUT who is to blame exactly? It's hard to know, since the FO/PR team were unified on the talking points.
DL has made some pretty great moves (this last draft helped his rep a bit and, Rubio's negatives aside, it didn't cost very much to get him and he's still pretty young - I'm on board with that).
But DL has made some dumb moves too: when he acquiesced to Ty Corbin's wish to trade 2 draft picks to move up for Burke. BUT DL made sure everyone knew that was on Ty and not him. Ok fine, it hurts, but I saw still elated that draft that DL was able to acquire the 27th pick to grab RUDY!!! That was great I was so relieved that draft. (Still, coulda had Giannis or McCollum or Shroeder AND Rudy).
So DL made a mistake that draft by acquiescing.
I wonder (speculate) if, for business reasons, the ownership christened Hayward the heir to the throne (stupid move) and refused to ever re-think it. And when reality didn't fit with that business plan, the ownership covered their ears, shut their eyes, and pig-headedly stuck with it. And perhaps DL acquiesced once again.
This is speculation but it's not like events of the past 7 years haven't been head scratching enough to make me wonder.
I still feel pretty good about DL as GM, but hopefully he learns from these mistakes. He probably needs more final say on things.