What did we learn about the Utah Jazz’s rotation — and their thinking — in Hawaii?

It feels like we learned a lot about the Utah Jazz on a Sunday night in Honolulu.

OK, sure, preseason isn’t always the best indication of what to expect during the regular season. Look no further than last year’s preseason action, when the Jazz looked extremely ugly — before running off 10 wins in their first 13 games in the regular season.

But rather than analyzing the small sample size of just one performance, I do think it’s worth looking at the decisions that were made. Obviously, shotmaking will ebb and flow, mistakes will be made, and so on ... but coaching and player decisions and attitude can reflect thinking that will continue to last through the first couple of months of the season.

To wit: Here’s last year’s rotation in preseason Game 1 when compared to regular season Game 1.

Honestly, it’s pretty similar. Four of the five players the Jazz started against the Raptors in Edmonton in the team’s first action last year ended up starting against the Nuggets come late October. The vets certainly played more minutes in the regular season. The Jazz made just two big rotation changes: putting Jordan Clarkson into the starting lineup over Malik Beasley, and giving Talen Horton-Tucker the bench minutes that went to Nickeil Alexander-Walker.

So what happened with the Jazz’s rotation in preseason Game 1?

Lesson No. 1: The team started Collin Sexton, Talen Horton-Tucker, Lauri Markkanen, John Collins, and Walker Kessler.

I think we all anticipate that frontcourt to stay the same, at least through the early part of the year. (Kessler looked terrific, by the way, while Collins looked like he needed some more time to adjust.) The backcourt, though, was a bit of a surprise. Jazz coach Will Hardy started two young guards who have certainly played point guard before, but tend to leave a little wanting when it comes to the traffic-control part of the job.

Hardy called his approach to the backcourt as “going back in time” — viewing playmaking as a two-man responsibility rather than some of the heliocentric offenses we’ve seen teams adopt in recent years. The hope is that whoever is back there could sum together to create enough playmaking for the five-man roster. In practice, well, the early returns weren’t good. From both Sexton and Horton-Tucker, playmaking was at a deficit, in favor of some wild drives and shots to the rim.

I don’t think this is set in stone, and heck, I wouldn’t be surprised if neither Sexton nor Horton-Tucker starts when the regular season comes around. But I do think the philosophy here was revealing.

Lesson No. 2: The initial rotational backups were Keyonte George, Jordan Clarkson, Ochai Agbaji, and Kelly Olynyk. Simone Fontecchio came in as the Jazz’s 10th man of the first half.

First of all, props to George being able to make the rotation in his first professional game with the full team. I think we saw some highlights and lowlights from George tonight — he might already be the team’s best player at drawing free throws and attacking in transition. He also showed more point guard savvy than his starting guards did. He also was probably the team’s worst defender ... he just absolutely fell asleep on backdoors multiple times.

The Jazz basically know what they’re going to get from Clarkson and Olynyk this year. Agbaji is still developing — after an up-and-down summer league where he was a square role-player peg pushed into a round first-option hole, he reverts back to a role player with the big team. Despite being 6-4, I think he’s going to have to play a lot of his minutes at the small forward position, as he did tonight, and he’ll have to guard bigger guys.

Early belief in Fontecchio (over lottery pick Taylor Hendricks and summer league standout Luka Samanic) is interesting. I would have bet, and still might bet, on Samanic being the preference long-term over Fontecchio, but the Italian certainly deserves a chance in a second year with more stability in his professional life.

Lesson No. 3: Taylor Hendricks is way down there on the depth chart.

Not only did Fontecchio play over Hendricks, but so too did summer minimum pickup Omer Yurtseven, the 25-year-old who played in just nine regular-season games for the Heat last season. (Yes, Yurtseven is a center while Hendricks is a power forward, but Yurtseven played with Olynyk — had the Jazz wanted to, they could have pushed Olynyk to the 5 while giving more time to Hendricks at the 4.)

This is not a good early sign for the Hendricks Hype Train, of which I’ve been a principal conductor. I considered him a top-5 player in the draft this year, in part because I believed he could contribute right away, even as a 19-year-old. After all, he’s a stellar athlete who can make plays on the defensive end, and a great shooter — a perfect role player!

But honestly, given the decisions we saw Hendricks make in his first action ... I understand the coaching staff here. My imagined role for Hendricks was as a weak-side pest on the defensive end and as a 15% USG spot-up shooter offensively. Instead, Hendricks forced the issue on offense with some ill-advised shots and drives, and then looked almost comically passive defensively. His 7-foot-1 wingspan and crazy athleticism don’t matter if his arms are down and he stays ground-bound as the Clippers finish around him.

I get that it was his first 12 professional minutes, but that combination isn’t going to work for him — and given that the coaching staff has left him so low on the depth chart, I worry he hasn’t been wildly better in practice. He’s probably farther away than I thought he was. For me, it’s not the end of the world, but it’s an expectation reset.

Lesson No. 4: Kris Dunn’s team control.

So when did the Jazz look best? Frankly, as soon as Kris Dunn came into the game. The Jazz’s offense hummed with Dunn on the floor. And honestly, he was also the Jazz’s most dangerous guard as a scorer individually — I’m not sure I would have expected that.

I think a lot of this (and the Jazz’s comeback to win the game) was down to the Clippers also going to their C-unit. Given their salary structure, with two super-high-dollar stars at the top of their salary sheet, their depth is just going to be less able than the Jazz’s, and that was certainly on display tonight. Higher-level defenders won’t fall for some of Dunn’s fakes.

But the “adult in the room” feeling was palpable. Dunn simply was tonight’s best player and won the game for the Jazz, however meaningless it was. He singlehandedly created 21 points for the Jazz in the 4th quarter through his points and assists to push the team to victory — without ever taking a shot outside of the flow of the offense.

While Dunn won’t always have nights like tonight, the Jazz are going to have to make a lot of these kinds of decisions throughout the year: do you play the best player, or do you give a young player more minutes? Dunn’s on a one-year, non-guaranteed contract, but he may deserve to play over the rookie George, or the long-term contract holder Sexton, or the 22-year-old Horton-Tucker.

Is that the right move for the franchise moving forward? Hardy will think it is: He’s very publicly espoused his “No free minutes” philosophy.

“When you give people free minutes, where there’s no repercussions for anything, a lot of bad habits form and a lot of lack of self-awareness forms,” Hardy told me last year. “And that’s dangerous, because once that happens, it’s hard to undo that.”

Dunn over George, Sexton, or Horton-Tucker might be testing the outer limits of that philosophy, though. Obviously, the best case scenario is if those young players can improve their play quickly — and they’ll have four more chances to do so before the regular season opens 17 days from today.