SALT LAKE CITY — On Oct. 28, 2024, there were tears.

The Utah Jazz had just witnessed Taylor Hendricks collapse to the floor after suffering a broken leg and dislocated ankle. Teammates looked away in shock as their eyes started to water.

Nearly a year later, the tears returned — this time out of joy.

In a summer pick-up game away from crowds and cameras, Hendricks took the court again to play five-on-five basketball.

“I mean, I was almost tearing up because it’d been so long,” Hendricks said. “I’m just so grateful to finally be able to move around again and run up and down the court and be tired and all those emotions. It hit me fast, so I was tearing up the first couple times.”

He wasn’t the only one.

Keyonte George said it was hard to keep the emotions in check after seeing the long recovery Hendricks endured.

“We spent the whole summer here together,” George said of Hendricks. “I was able to, like, really see him start back running again, and then start back being able to shoot the ball; and then, like, just kind of everything you take for granted.”

Jazz president of basketball operations Austin Ainge said there were no setbacks in Hendricks’ recovery, and he was cleared for full-contact play this summer. He spent the weeks leading up to training camp playing pick-up games with his teammates, relearning timing, and gaining trust in his surgically repaired leg.

“He’s worked his tail off,” Ainge said. “He looks like a monster out there. He’s been playing full court, full with no restrictions with our guys. We expect him to go full bore.”

Hendricks admitted there were some lingering doubts in the back of his mind when he first started playing again, but the almost freakish nature of the injury helped him get over any mental blocks. He slipped on the floor; that was it. There was nothing inherently wrong with his body that caused the fall; it was just a fluky accident.

“So getting through that mentally kind of was a little bit fast for me, so it was easy to get through that,” he said.

And now Hendricks is ready to start making a name for himself in the league.

“I feel like I could be the best defender in the league,” Hendricks said. “That comes with, first, proving that to the coach staff here, and them trusting me and moving forward with that, but that’s what I want to accomplish at camp right now.”

He wants to excel in all three phases of defense. He wants to be a lockdown perimeter defender, a help-side menace, and someone who can defend the rim. Right now, he said he’s the furthest along as being an on-ball defender — something the Jazz sorely lacked a season ago.

“He’s looked extremely well in our workouts since he’s been cleared,” Brice Sensabaugh said. “He’s been moving really well, and he’s been playing very well, so I’m excited for him.”

But the Jazz also want him to be patient.

“He suffered a tragic injury, but he’s back, and so I’m not overanalyzing his basketball in this moment,” coach Will Hardy said. “I think this is a moment that’s more about his health, and the fact that he’s strong and healthy and feeling confident is the most important thing to me.”

Hardy believes his return will be a boost to the locker room, as well.

Hendricks’ positivity after the injury resonated with the team last season. His presence at practice and on road trips provided a bit of perspective during a tough, loss-filled season.

“They all love him, and he was a big support system for them last year,” Hardy said. “He’s a really close friend of a lot of the guys on the team, and so I think they’re all excited to have him back on the court.”

The Key Takeaways for this article were generated with the assistance of large language models and reviewed by our editorial team. The article, itself, is solely human-written.