Danny Ainge Preaches Patience For Taylor Hendricks Following Injury
Dec 18, 2025, 4:09 PM | Updated: Dec 19, 2025, 10:41 am
SALT LAKE CITY – Utah Jazz CEO Danny Ainge believes the NBA’s rush for young talent comes at a cost—a lesson underscored by the often slow development of a rebuild now in its fourth season.
Front offices still struggle to balance the search for skill, maturity, and long-term potential.
Asked if he would want high school athletes allowed back in the NBA draft, Ainge went the other way. “If it were my world, they’d all play more years of college,” he said.
Ainge joined Hans and Scotty for his exclusive weekly interview on KSL Sports Zone on Wednesday, December 17, to discuss Taylor Hendricks, the Utah Jazz development plan, and other topics.
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With one of the NBA’s youngest rosters, the Jazz face an unenviable balancing act: delivering 240 minutes of competitive basketball each night while developing eight players in their first three seasons.
“I just think that the guys, they physically need to get there to play in the NBA,” he said. “In the world that we live in, everyone’s in a rush to get to that free agent money.”
Ainge cautions that there is no foolproof way through the process, and every prospect has its own pros and cons.
“There’s an attractiveness of 19-year-olds with big upsides and some growing pains,” he offers. “And there’s an attractiveness to a 22-year-old ready to go today. Even at 22, there’s still a learning curve in the NBA and a learning curve with a coach, a player, and a system, especially at the point guard position.”
With Danny and now his son Austin Ainge making draft selections, Utah has often erred on the young-and-talented side of the draft while trudging through a years-long rebuild—outliers like four-year college player and 2025 National Champion Walt Clayton Jr. exist, but are harder and harder to find.
Still, Utah’s model has been more about collecting assets with a wait-and-see approach that allows the franchise to consider various personnel paths, depending on who grows into rotation players, starters, or plays themselves out of the league.
Taylor Hendricks is still working back into form
That philosophy is being tested as Taylor Hendricks, a player Ainge hoped would become a core piece, works his way back from a career-changing injury.
In an ideal universe, the 2023 first-round pick would be blossoming into a three-and-D wing for an up-and-coming Utah Jazz team. Unfortunately, we don’t live in a perfect world.
The No. 9 overall selection out of 18 of Utah’s first 19 games as a rookie, while he focused on improving his body to withstand the pounding of an NBA game. He went on to play 10 of the 14 December games, indicating the sporadic minutes he would play all season.
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A gruesome leg fracture ended his sophomore season before it began.
Now, in year three, head coach Will Hardy is forced to balance the team’s best interests against giving Hendricks the minutes and freedom to prove himself.
Various stints with the Utah Stars in the G League have given Hendricks valuable playing time as he continues to build his body back up to NBA-level conditioning.
“He’s fortunate that Will believes in him and has given him those opportunities to play, and he’s proven it on a few of the nights he’s done well,” Ainge said. “He’s been getting more minutes and more reps when he’s gone down to the G League to play down there.”
Ainge believes that Hendricks and the franchise both need more time before determining his long-term outlook.
“I think he really believes he’ll get himself back physically to where he was,” Ainge said optimistically. “I think for us to evaluate him and judge him, we’ve really got to give him a little more time on healing from the injury, just because it was that dramatic of an injury.”
Taylor Hendricks by the numbers
- NBA (Year 1): 7.3 ppg, 4.6 rpg | (40 games, 23 starts)
- G League (Year 1): 14.4 ppg, 6.6 rpg | (nine games)
- NBA (Year 3): 5.5 ppg, 3.6 rpg | (14 games, three starts)
- G League (Year 3): 13 ppg, 6.9 rpg | (seven games)
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Ben Anderson is the Utah Jazz insider for KSL Sports and the co-host of Jake and Ben from 10- 12 p.m. with Jake Scott on 97.5 The KSL Sports Zone. Find Ben on Twitter at @BensHoops, on Instagram @BensHoops, or on BlueSky.
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Brian Preece is a sports.ksl.com insider covering Locals in MLB and the Salt Lake Bees. Follow Brian’s Bees and Beehive baseball here. Find Brian on X, Instagram, and BlueSky at @bpreece24.
