In an extended interview about his free-agency process, All-Star forward and new Celtic Gordon Hayward visted with ESPN's Adrian Wojnarowski to discuss the courtships of Boston, Utah and Miami in a wide-ranging visit on The Woj Pod, released on Monday afternoon.

On his relationship with Celtics coach Brad Stevens:

"It's been seven years since he coached me [at Butler], and immediately, though, he called me July 1, and after that phone call I thought like this isn't going to be any different. With him, it was one of those things where he made me feel like even if I don't go to Boston, it'll be fine and we'll still have that great relationship and he'll still be in my corner and he'll still be rooting for me and supporting me. So I got that feeling, too. We didn't have a driver. He's the one that picked me up and the one that drove me to the hotel and we got lost a couple times on the way. All those thoughts were put to bed."

On leaving his Miami visit after Pat Riley and Erik Spoelstra's recruiting pitch:

"I think the text I sent to [agent] Mark [Bartelstein] was, 'Wow, that's going to be really tough to beat.' ... I asked [my wife] Robyn, and she said something like she could see herself living there and that would be a really great place for us to be. 'I really liked such and such of the wives and I could have a good relationship with them.' It was all positive stuff. It was something where it was like 'OK, now let's try to just put that aside and go into Boston with a clean slate.'"

On the Jazz consulting with Hayward before trading for point guard Ricky Rubio:

"It kind of was a difficult situation because I don't want to be somebody that says, 'You go get this player and I'm 100 percent in. If you trade for so and so, you get rid of this guy, you go get him.' ... I didn't want to make demands because I didn't know if I was going to end up there. It wasn't a sure thing. I had told them I wanted to check out these other teams, and that being said, they asked me, 'How do you feel about these guys?' and I would tell them and Ricky was a guy that was high on my list.

"I think he's an underrated point guard and can really pass the ball and does a lot of things well, shot the ball well toward the end of last season, too. I think I was actually in Miami when I saw the trade happened. It was a step in the right direction for the Jazz. ... It was a fine line of 'I don’t want to sit here and make demands and guarantee I'm going to come back' or anything like that, but at the same time I thought there was a chance I would be back in Utah, so I would have loved to play with Ricky."

On leaving the Western Conference for the East

"When we're going through this process and you keep seeing some of the big-name guys and it's like, the West is loading up more and more and more, it's not something where, like, I'm going to go East just so I don't have to play them, 'cause you don't want to run from competition at all. That's not how I am. But there is a sense that it's probably a smarter thing as far as you're not going to have to battle it out with all these teams just to make it to the second round, make it to the third round, giving yourself a better chance against a Golden State. So it definitely crosses your mind, 100 percent.

"You look at the division the Jazz are in, and that is a tough division. Oklahoma City, Minnesota, Portland, Denver. Like that's going to be a really tough division and you're playing those teams four times a year. The All-Star thing is going to be hard no matter what division you're in, but certainly with the amount of stars that are in the Western Conference now, especially at the forward position, too. It's loaded, and you better have a really good first half of the season if you want to get in [to the All-Star Game]. A lot of that to me always comes down to how your team does. If your team is winning, then it's going to be a lot easier for you. Like I said, that for sure crosses your mind."