We're a couple of weeks removed from Utah Jazz basketball, and it feels like a good time to go back and grade each Jazzman’s season. While nobody looks at a 51-loss season as some grand success, several players had promising individual campaigns, gave us flashes of a promising future, or some combination of both. Next up on our list is Jazz rookie forward Taylor Hendricks.
Taylor came to Utah thanks to the 9th pick in the 2023 NBA Draft. Like many other rookies, the Central Florida product spent most of his inaugural NBA season getting repetitions in the G-League. However, after the trade deadline, Hendricks was called to the big league and started the final 23 games for the Jazz. In those starts, Hendricks averaged 9.3 points, 5.9 rebounds, & 1 assist in a little over 26 minutes per game.
More importantly, Taylor was tasked with guarding the opposing team's best player night in and night out, a role we saw Ochai Agbaji taking on a year ago. Overall, I thought Taylor had enough positive moments to make you feel good about his ability to do this going forward. He’s tall, he has a plus wingspan, he moves his feet, and he puts forth a ton of effort on that end of the floor. While he got thrown to the wolves and struggled to stop most of those players, this experience will serve him well heading into an important offseason for him and the Jazz.
One more point on his defense: Taylor is already a phenomenal shotblocker. There’s a ton to like about his defensive instincts, and he gave us quite a few highlight blocks in his rookie year. As he continues to learn and develop, that shot-blocking will only get more impressive.
Now, offensively, it’s a little bit cloudier what Hendricks will become. We know he’s a good shooter, evidenced by his 37.9% clip from deep in the NBA & 35.6% in the G-League. This provides value by having a guy you must respect on the perimeter.
Down the season's stretch run, teams frequently hid their worst defender on Hendricks. He’ll need to improve the rest of his offensive repertoire so that he can punish teams for sagging off of him, but again, this was his first taste of NBA action, and he did show us some moments where he put the ball on the floor and found the bottom of the net. Essentially, we have to wait and see what Taylor can give the Jazz on the offensive side of the ball.
Overall, I wish we could’ve seen more of Taylor this year. While the G-League is a valuable tool, there’s no substitute for NBA action. I think he is still a valuable piece for this young Jazz core, and I’m excited to see his development starting in the Summer League.
Grade B
Follow Inside The Jazz on Facebook and .
Subscribe to YouTube for breaking Jazz news videos and live streams!
More must-reads: