I've seen some discussions on draft twitter about the extent to which a team can affect development and it convinced me that it's much less than we seem to think. What really matters is 1) identifying talent and 2) acquiring talent. I used to believe that a player's situation was crucial to a players development....you know the idea that Kawhi would not become Kawhi unless he went to the Spurs. While I still believe some truth to that, I've started to side with the idea that talent is talent and that will shine through regardless. The special sauce isn't development, it's identifying and acquiring the talent. There are exceptions, of course, but this true in most cases.
So wherever you lie on the "play the young guys" spectrum, I think the effect is fairly muted. If there are gains from more opportunity, it's probably not a ton. And same goes for the possible negative effects. The real development plan for a player like Cody is to just draft someone good like Matas instead. Our current level has less to do with Hardy's development skill/minutes choices and more to do with the the quality of prospect we're giving him.