Over the last six weeks, Exum has flashed the kind of burst that made him such an enticing prospect in the 2014 draft. Exum has always been fast. He has gotten smarter about leveraging his speed into more of an advantage by keeping defenders off-balance with pauses and feints toward oncoming screeners. His explosion once he steps on the gas seems to catch defenders off-guard; he's in front of them, and then, bam, he's zooming past them to the rim.
This kind of feel is step one in building Exum into a rotation-level player on offense. (He's already there on defense). He's still way more comfortable as a straight-line, north-south scorer than in any other role. He struggles when defenses corral him on the pick-and-roll, and force him to slow down and make reads with a live dribble. His passes come too late, or too early, and they are often inaccurate.
Exum has turned the ball over on 28 percent of his pick-and-rolls that have ended Utah possessions. Among 159 guys who have run at least 50 such plays, only four -- Manu Ginobili (sad face), Solomon Hill, Dejounte Murray, and Randy Foye -- have coughed up the ball on a larger share of their pick-and-rolls, per Synergy Sports. Exum ranked dead last by this measure in his rookie season.
His jumper remains wayward. Exum is down to 29 percent on 3s, and a hideous 25 percent from the corners. That's so bad, it almost has to be unsustainable. The Jazz long ago concluded Exum isn't ready to run a team; they tried to extend George Hill before the March 1 deadline, and they're all-in to re-sign Hill in the summer. But keep an eye on Exum. Stuff is starting to happen.
