Yeah. He waited until the end of the ****ing year to have that game. Where was that game in January or February?
I'm not anti-Exum at all. In fact, I harbor hopes that he will be able to come back to full health and have a great career with the Jazz. But all of this quibbling over Shelvin Mack betrays a serious desire to coddle grown-*** men who need to own their own careers.
Someone earlier in the thread insisted that there is no substitute for playing time, and that may be true. But there is also no excuse for not outperforming the players that are ahead of you in the rotation if you are more qualified and talented than they are. Prove it in practice, and prove it in games. If you deserve playing time more than the other guy, it should be absolutely apparent.
Exum didn't prove anything like that before the GS series. It wasn't apparent at all for most of last year. He didn't play well enough to beat out Mack. And the reason for that, in all likelihood, is that he wasn't completely recovered from his knee rehab until April. And what happened then? His play in the GS series happened, and it was clearly better than Mack. But that level of play was not available for the entire year. Pointing to Mack's mediocrity doesn't change that.