Blake Hinson is the guy who told reporters he'd go get coffee or watch your dog if it meant making the team, and he meant it. Our reaction at the time: "Exactly who I want on my bench." His route to the Jazz included a health scare, two full years without a college game, a pickup-gym comeback, a record-setting run at Pitt, and three NBA teams that signed and cut him before Utah gave him real minutes. He's also the player who once stood on the scorer's table at Cameron Indoor while Kyle Filipowski, now his Jazz teammate, called it "really disrespectful."
A coach's kid from Deltona
Hinson was born Dec. 26, 1999, and grew up in Deltona, Fla., between Daytona Beach and Orlando. Sports ran in the family. His father, Denny, played basketball at UCF and Indiana State and later coached Blake at Deltona High School, and his older brother, Evan, played football and basketball at South Carolina, per Pitt's bio.
He was a football player too, a receiver who started as an eighth grader at Warner Christian. According to Yahoo Sports, Florida State offered him a scholarship for both sports by the eighth grade. He picked basketball because he liked it more.
At Deltona he led the region at 29.3 points per game in 2016-17 and, alongside Evan, took the school to its first state final four. He spent his senior year at Sunrise Christian Academy in Bel Aire, Kan., where Rivals ranked him the No. 1 player in Kansas and a four-star prospect (No. 102 nationally), per Pitt.
Ole Miss, a health scare, and two lost years
He started 31 games as a freshman at Ole Miss in 2018-19, averaging 8.3 points, with a 26-point game at rival Mississippi State and a trip to the NCAA Tournament. Then, before his sophomore season, he got sick. After going home to Florida in August 2019 he felt ill during workouts, and blood work showed what coach Kermit Davis called a "blood abnormality," per the Oxford Eagle. Davis missed more than his shooting:
"... we've missed his voice. That's one of the reasons he started last year, so many games, is because even as a freshman his voice was the best in the gym defensively."
He came back in late November and averaged 10.1 points. In June 2020 he transferred to Iowa State, and he told the Daytona Beach News-Journal that Mississippi's state flag, which still carried the Confederate battle emblem, was part of the reason. "I'm proud not to represent that flag anymore and to not be associated with anything representing the Confederacy," he said, via CBS Sports.
He never played for the Cyclones. In September 2020 Iowa State said he would miss the season with a medical condition unrelated to COVID-19, without saying more, and that he was going home to Deltona to be with his family, per ESPN. He left the program before the 2021-22 season, per WPXI. His last college game had been March 11, 2020.
What kept him sharp was pickup ball at an LA Fitness in Orange City, next door to Deltona, where he started the trash talk himself to make the games matter. "When I'd go in, it'd be loud and I lowkey started it," he told Sports Illustrated. "It would bring the competition out of people and it would bring the competition out of me."
Pitt, and the table at Cameron
Jeff Capel's Pitt took a chance on him in April 2022, and he had 27 points and 13 rebounds in his first game back. Capel's review, per The Pitt News: "He's easy to coach because there's no B.S. You can coach him hard. He accepts the truth."
He averaged 15.3 points and 6.0 rebounds, made second-team All-ACC, and hit an "impossibly deep" late three in Pitt's one-point First Four win over Mississippi State, as Yahoo described it. Then Pitt beat Iowa State, his old school, 59-41 in the first round, per the AP via CBS Sports. Hinson's line before that game, to WPXI: "I'm just ready to play my next game in March Madness, and I'm focused on winning."
He tested the draft, came back, and in 2023-24 became one of the most dangerous shooters in the country: 18.5 points a game, a school-record 110 threes at 42.1%, first-team All-ACC, and a 41-point night against Louisville with nine threes, per Pitt.
The night everyone remembers came in January 2024 at Duke: 24 points, 7-of-7 from three (matching an ACC record), an 80-76 upset, and Hinson on the scorer's table blowing kisses at the Cameron Crazies. Filipowski called it "really disrespectful," per Yahoo. Hinson's explanation:
"I don't enjoy being liked by the opposing fans. Heckling is what I live for."
Our take: the two of them now share a locker room in Salt Lake City, and we would pay to hear that conversation.
Undrafted: Lakers, Warriors, Blazers, and the G League
Nobody drafted him in 2024. The Lakers signed him to a two-way contract, and he averaged 10.9 points in Summer League, but in September they waived him to make room for Christian Koloko, per Silver Screen and Roll. Golden State signed him to an Exhibit 10 deal days later, which ended with him in Santa Cruz.
That G League season was loud. He averaged 20.1 points in 34 regular-season games and made a league-best 126 threes, per Pitt. In March 2025 he tied a Santa Cruz record with 10 threes and scored 44 against the Rip City Remix, and he told the Santa Cruz Sentinel his favorite part was the dunks: "Probably gonna go home and eat a cookie or something."
After a 2025 Summer League with the Warriors, Portland signed him to an Exhibit 10 deal and waived him before camp so he could play for those same Remix, per Sports Illustrated. He averaged 23.4 points in 30 games for Rip City, per the Remix.
Utah: the Warriors shot and a 30-point night
The Jazz signed him to a two-way contract on Feb. 9, 2026, per the Remix. The Deseret News describes it as a two-year deal, which is why he's still here. He started for the first time on Feb. 28 against New Orleans, per the Deseret News.
In his eighth NBA game, on March 9, he hit the go-ahead three with 29.9 seconds left to beat a short-handed Golden State team 119-116, per ESPN. He finished with 12 points on 4-of-9 from deep and gave the credit to his fellow two-way players: "There's only three of us, so we're like small little group, and it's fun to see those guys be successful," he told the Deseret News.
The next night he scored 36 in his Salt Lake City Stars debut, leading a comeback from 24 down against the Texas Legends. "My job's to shoot. I brought it when I flew into Utah," he said, per the Stars. Then on April 10 he scored a career-high 30 in a 147-101 win over a depleted Memphis team, which ended a 10-game losing streak, per ESPN. He finished at 11.9 points in 20.4 minutes, shooting 51.3% overall and 46.8% from three on 5.6 attempts.
Modeling plans, and a 20-pound summer
At season's end Hinson gave the Deseret News the best offseason goal on the roster: land a modeling gig. He has done some modeling already, called himself "the fat kid" before the NBA, and figured that getting lean enough for brands would also get him in shape for basketball.
It worked. Team sources told the Deseret News he lost more than 20 pounds after the season, and assistant coach Steve Wojciechowski said: "He's going to shoot a really good percentage, but it's the other areas of the game that the conditioning improvement have allowed him to make an impact defensively."
Camp: the dog-walking pitch
He opened the preseason with 14 points on 4-of-5 from three and six rebounds in 17 minutes against Denver on Oct. 4, which we covered in our opener recap. Asked afterward about the rotation, he gave the answer that went viral, per Sports Illustrated:
"I can help however. I can go get coffee. I can maybe make a shot. I can talk to somebody. I can watch your dog."
He went 0-for-3 in 12 minutes in the Oct. 6 rematch. Then Utah ruled him out against San Antonio on Oct. 12 with an adductor injury, a late addition to the report, per Jazz On SI (see our Spurs recap). The team hasn't given a timeline.
Role
Hinson is a 6-8, 230-pound forward whose job, in his words, is to shoot. He's a catch-and-fire spacer who'll also let it go off the bounce, and the weight loss is meant to make him playable on defense. He's on a two-way deal, so he can appear in up to 50 Jazz games and will spend the rest with the Stars unless Utah converts him to a standard contract.
2026-27 prediction
Our take: he opens the season on the two-way deal, not the 15-man roster. Utah's forward depth (Sensabaugh, Mykhailiuk, Filipowski when healthy) means his NBA minutes come in injury stretches and blowouts. When he plays, he shoots 40% or better from three, puts up a couple of big scoring nights in the Stars-to-Jazz shuttle, and makes a case for a standard contract by spring. The adductor is the near-term question.
Sources: Pitt Athletics, Yahoo Sports, Oxford Eagle, CBS Sports, ESPN, WPXI, Sports Illustrated, The Pitt News, AP via CBS Sports, Los Angeles Lakers, Silver Screen and Roll, Santa Cruz Sentinel, Rip City Remix, Salt Lake City Stars, ESPN, Deseret News, Jazz On SI, and @90s_jazz_fan on X.