Jazz's G-League blowout victory exposes red flag about their young players

With the G-League season in full swing, the Utah Jazz have sent some of their young players who hav been out of their rotation down to the SLC Stars to get some reps. The Stars just had a dominant win over the Rip City Remix, but Taylor Hendricks' and Cody Williams' lack of impact makes it hard not to think about how far behind they are on their developments.

The Stars beat the Remix, 174-146, in what was very clearly a display of excellent offense and terrible defense from both sides really. Nonetheless, the Stars lit the box score up.

At first glance, one would think it's because the team just added a few of the Jazz's first-round picks in recent years, including Hendricks, Williams, and Walter Clayton Jr. However, Clayton didn't play, and Williams and Hendricks put up largely just okay numbers.

In 27 minutes, Hendricks had a statline of eight points, eight rebounds, and five assists while shooting three-for-seven from the field with a plus/minus of plus-five. In 24 minutes, Williams had a statline of 13 points and six assists while shooting six-for-12 from the field with a plus/minus of plus-10.

Those aren't terrible numbers, but Hendricks and Williams are both former lottery picks playing in the G-League, so this should be child's play for them. Maybe the Stars don't want to depend on them, but there's no reason for them not to dominate in the minutes they're given.

It's already been hard not to notice their lack of progress this season. Hendricks deserves more leeway than Williams does for obvious reasons, but instances like these most optimistically demonstrate that their development will need quite some time.

They still need to show more in the G-League

Obviously, G-League performances need to be taken with a large grain of salt for NBA players, since it should come as no surprise that they dominate that level of competition. For that same reason, it's concerning when players like Hendricks and Williams don't do exactly that.

There's no telling how long either of them will be down there, but the longer they stay and the more often they put on performances like the ones they just did against the Remix, the harder it is to be confident about their ceilings long-term.

The Williams situation is painful enough as is because doing this when he hasn't shown much in the NBA makes it tough to believe in him long-term. Hendricks is coming off a devastating leg injury, so it may take him a full year to recover psychologically, but he was already a raw prospect even before that happened.

Utah is hoping for progress from these two, and they have just been given the easiest avenue to show a modicum of it. Games like last night don't mean much, but they definitely must show more going forward.