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Jazz at Trailblazers 4/11 @8 PM Mountain Time

stitches said:
The biggest problem I have with Exum is that he's not playing like himself. I've seen him play long and athletic, I've seen him play fast, I've seen him play aggressive, I've seen him be creative. Right now he's none of those. He plays timid and with no confidence. He plays short, he plays stuck to the floor in the lane and never looks to attack the rim. He plays like he's 5'11' who's not allowed to jump'. There's no conviction and determination in his step. And his offensive skill-set to be fair looks horrible. Absolutely horrible. Absolutely nothing to do with what he used to do in U18 competitions. His handle is shaky and unreliable, his touch around the rim is quite bad, a lot of his passes are soft and telegraphed. He almost never uses his quick first step to attack and create advantage. His floater is ugly as **** and not very successful. He has virtually no pull up game. His whole offensive game looks incredibly awkward, which a complete opposite to what he used to be - he was described as a smooth skilled athlete who can get wherever he wants on the floor and finish around the rim and draw a ton of fouls. He was actually supposed to be a great offensive player with variety of moves(hell, he was even showing some post-up game in the FIBA WC), and with a suspect defense.

I am very very far from giving up on him and I still have high hopes on him, but that's definitely not because of anything he's shown on the offensive end this year. All my hope for him(offensively) is connected with what I've seen of him prior to the draft - him blowing past Elfrid Payton in the lane and throwing down a dunk in traffic, him attacking relentlessly the rim and drawing a ton of fouls against Spain, the crossovers and explosion to the rim at the Hoop Summit. For all the talk that there is limited footage of Exum prior to the draft, I can probably make a much better highlight reel showing off his best attributes from that limited footage than from 82 games in his rookie season. There have been some flashes, but they've been extremely rare - the blow by Jrue Holiday and finish at the rim(and-1), the crossover and blow by Ty Lawson, the preseason drive in traffic and finish against DeAndre Jordan(and-1), the drive against the Raptors where he actually went up, drew the foul, hanged in the air and finished. I can count them on the fingers of my hand. Am I missing something? A ton of 3pts I guess... Hell it just shows you that when he actually goes strong to the hoop with the purpose of attacking he will draw fouls(3 of the 4 'flashes' that I could remember of this season were situations in which he finished and drew a foul).

He has a ton of work in the summer but the biggest improvement needs to happen between his ears and with his attitude and confidence.
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Thanks for posting that, it gives renewed confidence that he can bring it. It has not been easy to watch him this year. The promise is evident, but the timidity is very perplexing. Never seen anyone play so many minutes like that.
 
I'm not worried about Dante at all. If he shows no improvement next year then I'll start to be a little worried.

What a game.

Even then I'll be high on the kid.
 
Jamezz said:
I'm drunk. Go Jazz. Was Portland's home court advantage guaranteed before this game? If not, we're gonna start kicking some mfing *** next year.
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Portland lost home-court advantage last night because they couldn't handle seven rookies and a dude who is most famous for a trick shot, on their home floor. No Aldridge for Portland, but no Favors or Hayward for the Jazz. First win in the Rose Garden (I still call it) in four games, and what a win!
 
Jose_Ortiz_fan said:
Portland lost home-court advantage last night because they couldn't handle seven rookies and a dude who is most famous for a trick shot, on their home floor. No Aldridge for Portland, but no Favors or Hayward for the Jazz. First win in the Rose Garden (I still call it) in four games, and what a win!
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Yea you Aldridge, Afflalo and Matthews.

But no Hayward, Favors, Burks and Burke for the Jazz. Portland can spin it how they want but the got beat by rookies and D leaguers on their home court when they needed a win badly. And tried to win.

Jazz are all in on Gobert, Hood and Exum right now.
 
KD's Framily said:
The 2008 Jazz team was the best record-wise in the last 15 years. They went 17-24 on the road.

This year's Jazz team is now 17-23 on the road.
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Good stat. In the end, I think it's fair to say that those jazz teams were never very focused.
 
mhindy said:
So if he'd had to start because they didn't have another real sf on the team he probably would have put up bad numbers too. It's rare that you have the combo of raw-ness and nobody in front of you that the Jazz have this year.
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Last year too, with Trey and nobody behind him. Well, unless you count JLIII as a real basketball player. Unfortunately, Trey didn't take a leap his 2nd year. So no guarantee Exum suddenly becomes magically delicious, either. What concerns me is his lack of aggressiveness and lack of BBIQ. He has two "go-to" moves: 1) he dribbles baseline and sometimes finds an open big. More often, he's either forced out of bounds or has to throw a terrible pass to avoid going out; 2) drives into the lane, usually left side, turns tail and dribbles back out. More than a few times, he's taken the ball in with 5 seconds left on the shot clock and then turns and passes out, resulting in a shot-clock violation or a wild shot by someone else. And his shot is OPEN! I'm very skeptical Dante will ever develop into a top-10 PG. He just doesn't have the mentality.
 
Stoked said:
Yea you Aldridge, Afflalo and Matthews.

But no Hayward, Favors, Burks and Burke for the Jazz. Portland can spin it how they want but the got beat by rookies and D leaguers on their home court when they needed a win badly. And tried to win.

Jazz are all in on Gobert, Hood and Exum right now.
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No Burke is a plus, although Cotton was trying to do his best Trey impersonation by going 3-12.
Portland doesn't have much beyond their main rotation. Utah could find themselves in a similar situation once all the rookies come off their contracts and Utah has to pay big money to keep the 7-8 guys they really want.
 
I'm only worried about exum, because he hasn't shown many glimpses of what he can be, no crazy good games, etc. The only one I can think of is him getting 12 assists. Wiggins and Lavine are 19 as well, but they've shown impressive games every now and again...
 
The Fresh Prince said:
Well I said might.

Ok ok. TMac was legit, maybe Joe Johnson? Kevin Martin. I'm just saying I can see him being a 24 ppt scorer.
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He reminds me of Michael Redd, but more athletic. Redd put up six seasons if 21+ ppg (high of 26 ppg in one season) on 45% FGs. Those are lofty numbers and I'm not saying Hood will get there, but I agree with you that the potential is there.
 
KD's Framily said:
Actually, Kobe and Dirk's rookie years were lightyears ahead of Exum's. Sheldon Williams, Kwame Brown, and Joe Alexander were all terrible and are no longer in the league. Anthony Bennett and Austin Rivers are both currently terrible.

I'm not arguing against having hope, and there's a case to be had for Exum being different than others who were terrible at 19, but the cold fact is, you're going to come up dry if you try to find 19 year olds that had worse rookie seasons than Exum and ended up becoming stars.

For the record I think Exum will end up becoming decent. But I am not holding out hope on him becoming a star.
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Yeah, the players I mentioned were busts. Guys who performed poorly and were out of the league a few years later. I can also come up with rookies who had a better statistical season than Exum and ended up out of the league (Adam Morrison, Jonny Flynn). There also guys who couldn't get off the bench because they were really bad but became stars (Jimmy Butler). My point? You can't go with the numbers to judge future success of rookies. You need some patience.

Kobe showed promise and tenacity but he wasn't ready (remember the 4 airballs?). Dirk rookie season was underwhelming, to the point that he felt he didn't belong in the league and considered returning to Europe. Awful 19year old rookies who became stars? Better yet, I'll come up with a 22year old rookie who become one of the best pg ever: Gary Payton. He could defend and run an offense but couldn't shoot to save his life. He had no offensive game until he was almost 25. He was so frustrated with coaching and his game that also considered retiring.

The problem with Exum is the hype and expectations when he was drafted. Chad Ford called him the next Kobe. C'mon. Let's give the kid at least two years to figure things out.
 
Stifle Tower said:
He has two "go-to" moves: 1) he dribbles baseline and sometimes finds an open big. More often, he's either forced out of bounds or has to throw a terrible pass to avoid going out;
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Oh contrary on that point. That is one of his best moves, and he often frees up a big and gets him a very sweet pass for an easy dunk. It is one for the few things he does regularly to give me hope.
 
Lets also not forget he didn't play for a year before going to the NBA. He was looking to go to college then saw he was being mocked in the high lottery so he ended up not going. T
 
The Blue Elephant said:
You realize that there have been guards that have come out of high school and were younger than Dante that put up much better stats than him? A lot of these guys didn't amount to much. Shaun Livingston, DeShawn Stevenson, J. R. Smith, Louis Williams.

Dante's defense is decent but not anything near elite. For example espn recently ranked every starting PG in the NBA and ranked Dante's defense as the 23rd best, or the 7th worst. People on these forums act like he is a Gary Payton, Andre Roberson, or a Rajon Rondo on defense.

People have the misconception on these forums that Dante is a super athletic freak. His agility numbers and vertical jump was actually lower than Trey Burkes at the combine. Dante is no John Wall, Bledsoe, RW, or Derrick Rose. Not even close.

I hope Dante does great in the future but I don't know how anyone can call his rookie season anything but disappointing.
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Those guys were playing NAU ball against the best high school competition in maybe the entire world. His defense for a 19 year old is far better than "decent". Dante really isn't our "starter" this year. He is starting but Burke is playing more minutes. I had no expectations going into this season for him. Therefore I'm not in the slightest disappointed. I've actually become more excited about his potential as the year has gone on.
 
Doublea said:
I'm only worried about exum, because he hasn't shown many glimpses of what he can be, no crazy good games, etc. The only one I can think of is him getting 12 assists. Wiggins and Lavine are 19 as well, but they've shown impressive games every now and again...
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Exum didn't have college experience yo.


Sent from the JazzFanz app
 
KD's Framily said:
"Your opinion is different from mine, you must be stupid/have no patience".

Thought this board had a little more maturity than that. Anyways, to repeat myself, even among 19 year old rookies (including those that have made the jump from high school, believe it or not), Exum's numbers rank among the worst. I didn't expect Exum to be good this season by any stretch, but I did expect more than one of the worst 19 year old rookies in NBA history. I think virtually everybody did.
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I didn't call your opinion stupid. I said it was stupid to give up this early. That's not nearly the same thing. And again apparently you don't understand the jump in competition. Or refuse to see it as you have already decided he's a bust.
 
Exum has two problems. One, his handles are sub par. Two, he knows it.

His handles can be fixed. His knowledge will be an asset. Once he gets those handles down, and he has confidence to drive into the lane and not get stripped, he game will instantly change.
 
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