Game Thread Oct 31, 2025 08:00PM MT: Utah Jazz @ Phoenix Suns

[HadAnEffectHere]

I'm wondering if he, Cody and Ace could all benefit with some time with the Stars.

No, no one plays defense in the G-League and Ace and Hendricks need to learn how to defend. The issue might just be that Lauri can't play with Ace or Hendricks and Ace and Hendricks can't play with each other (they're all PFs with no ball handling) so they may just have to wait on the bench until Lauri is traded.

 

[Shad]

Last night was the first game I couldn't watch. I was disappointed with a lot of our young players looking at the highlights and after game videos.

Keyonte (who ive been hard on) looks like our best young prospect (as long as he's not chucking). Walker has mostly been positive but from what ive read and seen, he apparently was season 2 walker last night. Defense has improved but still bad.

We have so many players that are unplayable together.

I still believe in Hendricks but man, he has had a ROUGH first 5 games. He's been terrible everywhere overall. He can't playmake or dribble so he sits in the corner on offense and does nothing. He's getting blown by on defense consistly to the point we're playing Cody over him.

Flip can play make but he's a Temu Lauri. Terrible defense like Lauri so you cant play them together.

Walt and Ace have struggled but they're rookies so they get a pass.

Brice is unplayable with a team that already is loaded with players that cant defend. I think Brice could play if there were 3-4 players on the court that could defend but we dont have that. Really rough when he tries to playmake but at least he tries.

Walker, Harkless, and Collier (who was our second best defensive player last year) are really the only players that play defense and Walker can look soft or uninterested at times. Harkless was an absolute monster against the Blazers but for some reason we only want to play him and Cody when we're down 20+.

Tldr; Hendricks, Flip, Lauri, and Brice are unplayable with each other. Stop playing Anderson and Svi more minutes when we're suppose to be developing anyone at this point. If we lose by 50 cause we played our young players 20 minutes, then do it. Svi getting 25-30 minutes a night is mind-boggling to me

 

[HeatCheck]

One thing you could argue is that we're trying to boost Lauri's trade value currently and Ace and Hendricks are such horrendous fits with Lauri (all three being PFs who can't dribble) that we'll start playing Ace and Hendricks more after Lauri gets traded.

Yeah I think that has been the reality since the draft lottery. It was obvious Ainge wasn't passing on the 6'-9" wing (See Cody and the Celtic drafts). Lauri didn't have much value on that contract coming off a down year.

My biggest beef in the offseason was not grabbing a wily vet PG to get these young kids into their sets. It's obvious Hendricks, Cody, and Ace need to be set up. It would take a lot of pressure off them. Despite the warts Collier is the closest they have and he's obviously been injured. You can grab rotation defenders in the 2nd round of most drafts so believe at this point they need to find out if these guys drafted in the first round the past few years can develop offensively and secondly are they willing to hustle on the defensive end.

Which brings me to my final point. I get that they haven't had the defensive personnel on the roster but outside of Harkless, Collier (and Kessler's shot blocking) I don't think I've seen any defensive hustle on this team the past 4 seasons under Hardy. He goes on in his post game pressers about the lack of defense for 4 seasons now. Even if they lack technique at some point you have to wonder why the young players on this roster aren't at least trying to fight thru a few screens.

 

[Tanktastic]

It's hard to say "player development doesn't work like that" with Hendricks in particular simply because he's bad mostly because he doesn't know how to play perimeter defense and he's played 150 minutes of perimeter defense in his entire life that wasn't on the hard tanking 2022-2023 Jazz post trade deadline.

You don't learn completely new skills in the NBA by playing in NBA games.

You can improve, adapt, fine-tune skills you have. If Hendricks doesn't play perimeter D and never in his life has done it... guess what, he's not gonna play it or be good at it.

Im with ya. Hendricks, Brice, and Clayton should all play at least 15 minutes per game imo.

They would, they absolutely would, if they did the bare minimum. However, if they play like ****, don't seem to care, haven't listened to their coaching, go out and do whatever they like, they won't. Not on the Jazz, not with Hardy, not with anyone else.

Playing them every night, despite what they do on the court, would just be a reward for bad play and habits. Leading to more bad play and more bad habits.