Estimated read time: 4-5 minutes
ORLANDO — Taylor Hendricks only had seven tickets to give out to Thursday's game against the Magic. He could have used a bit more.
"There was a lot here tonight," the Jazz rookie forward said when asked how many friends or family were at the game.
Hendricks played an NBA game in his home state for the first time Thursday, scoring 10 points and grabbing seven rebounds in Utah's 115-107 loss to the Magic.
The game was played about 15 miles from where he made a name for himself at UCF. It was there he burst onto NBA radars, showcasing a versatile defensive game with some offensive intrigue mixed in.
But there was no doubt he was a raw prospect. So at the start of the season, even he didn't think he would be in the position he found himself in on Thursday: starting a game in his home state, and in the arena he had watched NBA games in as a spectator.
"Two years ago … we were watching the Magic game," he said. "Two years later, I'm playing against them."
Life can come fast.
And it has for Hendricks over the last month. The Jazz eased him into the NBA world, letting him get his feet wet in the G League to start. In his first three months, he was only called up to the big club in dire situations. Now, he's showcasing that same intriguing potential he flashed when he was a UCF Knight.
"He's taken a big leap in terms of his responsibility," Jazz coach Will Hardy said. "You're in the G League for most of the year and then you're a starter. He's a kid that wants to win, he wants to help. He's very coachable; he lets me coach him hard."
Hendricks is showing more and more that he can handle that increased role, too. The game has slowed down for him. In his first two games following the trade deadline moves that cleared a runway for him, Hendricks was frantic with the ball and often lost on the defensive end.
Now, he's recognizing spacing and reads and letting his athleticism and length affect the game.
There are still plenty of mistakes, though. On Thursday, for example, he got beat by Paolo Banchero down the baseline multiple times; that's just part of the growth process. The Jazz have put him on a variety of different players over the last three weeks, and let him, essentially, sink or swim.
"Taylor competes every single night," Hardy said. "That's the part for me that gives me a lot of hope for him, because I know that when he goes in the game, he's gonna give maximum effort. He makes energy plays. His length and athleticism seem to show up in every game, but I think that there's a lot for him to learn from this game, because I don't anticipate that Taylor's gonna have a physical strength advantage on every player that he guards from here on out; and that takes a little bit different technique."
So Thursday was a game that will provide plenty of good learning moments on film for Hardy to review with the rookie, something Hendricks fully embraces. He hasn't shied away from how green he is as a player.
He came to UCF as a four-star recruit and ranked outside of the top 50 nationally. Those aren't the players expected to be one-and-done first-round picks. He went on a meteoric rise into the lottery; that rise, though, didn't mean the learning stopped.
"The way the world works now, feedback is negative a lot, especially publicly," Hardy said. "And as a coach, sometimes you have to really be clear to the players that I'm not another critic. I'm not somebody that's going on TV talking trash about you. I'm trying to help you. It doesn't mean that I'm going to tell you everything you want to hear; part of helping you is telling you the things that you're not doing well and that you have to correct."
And part of learning is accepting where you can be better. Hardy appreciates the humility Hendricks has shown this season in that regard. The Jazz see him as a major part of their future; he's just not that player yet. The goal is to get him there as quickly as they can together.
"The fact that he has enough humility to recognize he doesn't know everything makes it easy to coach him every day because I don't worry about hurting Taylor's feelings," Hardy said. "I know that he understands that my job is to coach him hard and that I'm demanding these things of him, because I think he can be really good. It's my job and our job as a staff to try to help them get there as fast as possible."
As his time at UCF showed, things can happen for him pretty fast.
