This wasn’t the plan. This wasn’t the expectation.
Taylor Hendricks was a quality recruit, ranked among the top-100 high school prospects in his class. But nobody envisioned such a meteoric rise from small-school starter to NBA first-round draft prospect. Not the player. Not those around him. Not even the coach, UCF assistant Robbie Laing, who had recruited him since his sophomore year of high school.
But then, early in his one year at Central Florida, Hendricks began flashing an eye-opening potential, a two-way game that made people really pay attention. He didn’t just force his way into the starting lineup, but he became almost impossible to take off the floor.
“I always thought he was going to get to this point; I didn’t know he would get there this quick,” Laing said in a recent phone interview with The Post. “It happened fast, and I think some of our competition was a little stunned at how good he was.”
