Taylor Hendricks' impending Jazz return is exciting, but there's a problem

The Utah Jazz have so many young players on the team oozing with various degrees of talent. Lost in the shuffle of their growing youth movement has been Taylor Hendricks. Hendricks is slated to return at 100% next season (physically), but the one problem is, where does he fit?

Hendricks' second season was supposed to be trial by fire, where he was thrown to the wolves as a star, but suffering that awful leg injury just three games into the season threw a wrench in his and the Jazz's plans. Luckily, he has had the right mindset since suffering the injury and has made it clear he can't wait to come back to the floor.

On July 12, Hendricks briefly talked about how excited he is to be back on the floor for Year 3.

"I can't wait," Hendricks sad. "I wish the season started tomorrow, but I'm ready though."

Those feelings are more than understandable, coming off a season-ending injury when his NBA career had just started. The problem is figuring out where to put him. The Jazz have no reason not to see what they have in Hendricks, but where does he fit in their rotation?

Hendricks is a forward who will likely spend the majority of his minutes at the three and four. Utah hoped to see what he was best equipped for on the team before the injury. Next season, it will be a different story where Lauri Markkanen and Walker Kessler will presumably hold the four and five spots while the golden prospect Ace Bailey will man the starting wing position.

It would make sense to relegate Hendricks minutes to the bench to start, but then he has to compete for minutes with Brice Sensabaugh, Cody Williams, and K.J. Martin. There's also no telling what will happen with Kyle Anderson or Kevin Love.

It's why Utah likely isn't done making moves

Hendricks should be brought back slowly, as we can't underestimate the amount of time for him to make a full psychological recovery, but with the current roster construction, it's difficult to figure out where he will fit into the picture.

Besides the highly publicized moves of trading Collin Sexton and John Collins for scraps, then buying out Jordan Clarkson, it went under the radar that the Jazz waived Johnny Juzang - who was pretty good for them last season - and kept Svi Mykhailiuk, who wasn't bad but is likely happy to still be in the show.

That kind of move suggests that the Jazz want to cut players who will get in the way fo their youngsters' developments. For how good Juzang was, what the Jazz saw from him was his peak, and there are younger players with potentially higher ceilings that they clearly value developing over keeping him around.

Right now, the offseason rumblings have died down, but that could change in the coming weeks. The Jazz have followed a pattern this offseason, so expect more moves to come, though not right away. If and when they do, they'll do so with Hendricks in mind.