The Utah Jazz made a bold choice to play one of their least-ready players in Taylor Hendricks. Another way of saying "least ready" is bad. He's not been very good in the action he's had so far in his rookie season and that's part of the reason why the Utah Jazz head coach likely wants to get him more minutes. Not only to help him improve but to see if he can add anything to the team that's potentially missing as he finds his footing.
We're just not sure benching Walker Kessler to do so is the right call. We're not on board with the tank but we're accepting it's happening. We know that Hendricks got minutes in Thursday's game against the lame-duck Charlotte Hornets because the team isn't trying to win.
To Hendrick's credit, the game against the Hornets was arguably the best of his career. The Hornets are awful, but we're taking a win where we can. He had 12 points, nine rebounds, and a respectable BPM of +10. In fact, we'd argue this was his best game yet. He shot 5-9 from the field, but 4-4 from inside the three-point line. We'd like to see him do more of that.
We're not against Hendricks starting, he has to. The team is tanking in part due to his potential. We're just not on board with Kessler getting benched once again, for no other reason than Hardy being too invested in John Collins. Collins is bad. Yeah, he had 18 rebounds but it was against the Hornets. They have 14 wins.
They're not a bad team, they're a terrible team. Collins has looked attorcious on defense all season and hasn't gotten any better. Offensively, he's fine. He's a good enough fifth starter on a team with better talent, but the Jazz need more out of him than he's able to give them. The Jazz need to sit Collins on the bench, start Hendricks, Kessler, and Keyonte George, and really see what they can do.
Collins and Jordan Clarkson can still prove their worth (or lack thereof) off the bench. It's not like playing an extra six minutes of nights is going to con another team into thinking Collins (and Clarkson) are better than (they) are.