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Hey Everyone... Lets Chill on Writing Hendricks Off... TIA

Taylor had some nba ready skills… well that was the story hopefully… he could sit in the corner and space the floor while playing defense. I think he could be ready to do that in the next couple months if he’d had a full summer league and offseason. I think it’s an important step for many young players and will leave him a bit behind. We don’t need him to contribute this year so it really doesn’t matter much.

Also I watched Walker the other night. He looks fine but dribbled into multiple mid range floaters and was mostly invisible on defense… all these guys need time. Bilal looks amazing on defense… long term the shooting will need to come around. Black has been a bit of a disaster out there. He does do some things beyond the box score though so you do have to watch him.

I would have loved to land Ausar… that’s the one guy I’ve watched that I thought would be perfect for what we need… shrug.
 
Taylor had some nba ready skills… well that was the story hopefully… he could sit in the corner and space the floor while playing defense.
Part of the problem is the jazz offense hasn't gotten him open three point looks. He was WIDE OPEN last game and the ball handler (cant remember who) drove into the paint and took a horrible shot. Hendricks had no one within 10 feet of him and didn't get the ball.

Defensively he has simply been a disaster. He seems to really stuggle in the zone concept the jazz have been running. Might do better in man to man.
 
Taylor had some nba ready skills… well that was the story hopefully… he could sit in the corner and space the floor while playing defense. I think he could be ready to do that in the next couple months if he’d had a full summer league and offseason. I think it’s an important step for many young players and will leave him a bit behind. We don’t need him to contribute this year so it really doesn’t matter much.

Also I watched Walker the other night. He looks fine but dribbled into multiple mid range floaters and was mostly invisible on defense… all these guys need time. Bilal looks amazing on defense… long term the shooting will need to come around. Black has been a bit of a disaster out there. He does do some things beyond the box score though so you do have to watch him.

I would have loved to land Ausar… that’s the one guy I’ve watched that I thought would be perfect for what we need… shrug.
I think in addition to Wemby, Chet and Scoot who are locks to start, the two likeliest starters in day 1 are Ausar and Bilal.

George is pretty high on the list of next to start (barring injuries). Probably as high as first. And only one of the five above who likely plays for a competitive team is Chet.
 
Part of the problem is the jazz offense hasn't gotten him open three point looks. He was WIDE OPEN last game and the ball handler (cant remember who) drove into the paint and took a horrible shot. Hendricks had no one within 10 feet of him and didn't get the ball.

Defensively he has simply been a disaster. He seems to really stuggle in the zone concept the jazz have been running. Might do better in man to man.
I think "disaster" is an unfortunate word since it's most likely to participate in a pattern of overreaction. There's simply not enough evidence out there for me to say anything that would participate like that. It's a bit like calling kale "****ing delicious" when all you've ever eaten is iceberg, romaine, beet greens, and kale.
 
I'm guessing Hendricks gets some minutes tonight with Lauri, KO, and Collins out.
That is great news if we are sitting those guys out. You would expect him to get at least 24 minutes tonight. Hopefully closer to 30. The same goes for Sensa if we sit a bunch of wings.
 
I think "disaster" is an unfortunate word since it's most likely to participate in a pattern of overreaction. There's simply not enough evidence out there for me to say anything that would participate like that. It's a bit like calling kale "****ing delicious" when all you've ever eaten is iceberg, romaine, beet greens, and kale.
He has been in the right spots a lot of times on defense with a couple notable exceptions… I think he has just played with very little force. I think that comes as he feels more comfortable… the timid critique has been fair as there have been 2-3 easy opportunities for him to step up and block a shot.

It’s just clear he’s thinking real hard out there. I think it’s pretty common even for guys that seem “ready” or are billed as a “rotation player from day one” to end up needing time.

One thing I’ve liked is he looks huge and the shot looks good (other than one he rushed off a screen that was fugly). Sometimes these kids get out there and they look like they 6-8 not 6-10… he looks every bit of his measurables. I think where some expected him to be this year is where he will be next year.
 
BTW, I had a nightmare that JHS was shooting 17% from the field this preseason, the woke up and laughed. No way that could happen, right?
 
Im excited!
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I think the gap between my evaluation of him (and what’s likely holding him behind for now) is his defense. I definitely wasn’t one who thought his shot blocking was like JJJ, but I thought he’d contribute earlier. Just looks kinda lost out there on the defensive side of the ball. Missing SL couldn’t have helped. I was a little too high on him, whatever nbd.

I think he will need to find a defensive identity in the GLeague. Is he a guy who guards down on smaller players with length? Does he get bigger/tougher and guard bigs? Does he actually turn into a big time weak side shot blocker? It’s all tbd for now.

I also think that when people are debating people who are “freaking out” it’s mostly just debating a bogeyman. Like I don’t really see a ton of negativity and it’s really just being perpetuated by those trying to defend him.
 
I am so glad we didn't trade up for him. I might be the minority on here when it comes to him, but I was never impressed with his game.
lol incredible how much weight folks give here to a few preseason games and how rookies play in them. Even the best players in the league have bad, awful, disastrous, etc. games. At his point, any of these rookies can be a good player one day.
 
lol incredible how much weight folks give here to a few preseason games and how rookies play in them. Even the best players in the league have bad, awful, disastrous, etc. games. At his point, any of these rookies can be a good player one day.
Incredible how people assume I was talking about preseason when I was talking about his tourney play last year. Why I said "glad we didn't trade up to get him".
 
This draft class has been disappointing so far this preseason, but I think it's important to remember the majority of this class was thought of as high level defenders and not necessarily prolific scorers. The majority of these guys were never going to show out on box scores, so you really have to watch them play.

I would also add many of the top picks this year are very young. That was part of their appeal, that they had a lot of upside, but weren't necessarily drafted on even their college production. If these guys weren't dominating at the college level, it's not likely they are going to come in right away and dominate in the NBA.

I think we all have to be patient, but we also have to be prepared for many of these guys to not reach their potential.
 
I take the preseason performance with a grain of salt even with vets. If they play good/bad whatever, but I think that when coaches show their rotation they give insight on how guys are playing in camp. The surprise for me is that Hendricks doesn’t even seem to be in consideration for playing time. I thought his skillset would allow him to be in that conversation earlier on. It was a big selling point for me personally. Raise your hand if you thought differently….but I don’t think I was alone in that. He’s a bit behind on defense it appears, but here’s hoping he’s a quick learner.
 
This draft class has been disappointing so far this preseason, but I think it's important to remember the majority of this class was thought of as high level defenders and not necessarily prolific scorers. The majority of these guys were never going to show out on box scores, so you really have to watch them play.

I would also add many of the top picks this year are very young. That was part of their appeal, that they had a lot of upside, but weren't necessarily drafted on even their college production. If these guys weren't dominating at the college level, it's not likely they are going to come in right away and dominate in the NBA.

I think we all have to be patient, but we also have to be prepared for many of these guys to not reach their potential.

I think I’m on record saying I thought this draft wasn’t as good as people were making it out to be. I thought a lot of players were slated a notch higher than they would be on a standard draft. It’s definitely a very young class with very few older players so we’ll have to give it time.
 
Incredible how people assume I was talking about preseason when I was talking about his tourney play last year. Why I said "glad we didn't trade up to get him".
I’m still a fan. Even in preseason where he’s struggling he does the things where he comes away with a loose ball or tips one that you can see he just does the extra stuff… reminded me of Ricky Rubio that way. On that team it will be a struggle though… they need shooting in the worst way.
 
I definitely bought into the Anthony Black hype by the end of the draft cycle. It seemed like he was the guy we would have moved up for and I was down for it. I was convinced he was going to come into that ORL team and take the starting job early. Got ahead of myself on him too.
 
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