The Dawn of Dante - The Downbeat - #1531

In a move that shocked everyone, Coach Snyder made significant lineup change last night when he promoted Dante Exum to the starting spot and sending Trey Burke to the bench.

With Burke's struggles and inconsistencies so far this season, you couldn't blame Snyder for making a change except for the fact that Exum hasn't done anything to merit a promotion. He hasn't had a Rudy Gobert-like break out yet where Snyder couldn't keep him on the bench any longer.

One of the reasons cited for the move from Locke was to provide "thrust" to the starting unit and scoring for the second unit. It makes sense. Exum has been more of a facilitator so far in his rookie season, sometimes to a fault. Burke has looked for his shot, even when it's not falling.

Both filled their role well last night despite a 4-11 outing from Burke. Exum had a career-high in threes with five and tied another career high in assists with five. The very early returns on the change look good.

Of course the question now is is this a permanent move? The other reason this surprised me is that with Derrick Favors out for personal reasons, the starting lineup was down one of their leading scorers. Moving a scorer in Trey to the bench limited the offense to just Gordon Hayward and Enes Kanter. For as dominant as Rudy Gobert has been, the team has still struggled on offense when he's been on the court.

So what does this mean for Trey Burke? Is this a permanent move? On one side, I don't think Quin Snyder makes this change if Burke had been playing better. He has been playing much better lately and is almost back up to his rookie numbers after a terrible start. If Exum continues to play well in the starter's role, I think he keeps the spot. We'll still see a lot of Burke and Exum in the back court going forward. It's a bit of a risk to the team and Trey's psyche to make a switch like this.

Of course I'm likely completely wrong and Snyder goes back to Burke in a couple of games after testing and teaching. Tell me that you can predict what the coach is going to do. You can't.

An interesting comparison for Burke is Brandon Knight coincidentally. He had similar numbers to Burke in his first two years before turning it on last season and being even better this season. I don't think there's any reason to give up on Burke. There's still a decision to be made going forward, but I could see the Utah Jazz keeping both and having an good point guard coming off the bench.

A big call late last against the Jazz could have cost them the game and should be something that gets added to the calls that get reviewed late in games.

I'm talking about the ball going out of bounds off Rudy Gobert of course. It was clearly off him when watching the replay. The problem of course is that the only reason they reviewed the play is that Gobert lost the ball due to getting fouled by two Bucks. One hit his left, rebounding arm once he had the ball and the other grabbed his right arm, preventing him from going after the ball.

While reviewing out-of-bounds calls, refs can already review "any unsportsmanlike acts or [if] unnecessary contact occurred."

In some cases fouls can be reviewed, but the foul has to be called first. The current rules don't allow for a foul to be called after the fact. And perhaps that opens a Pandora's box it fouls are allowed to be called on reviews. But in this case, a foul affected an out-of-bounds call, perhaps that should be looked at.

The All-star voting results are in and the top vote getter for the Jazz was *scrolling, scrolling, scrolling, scrolling*...

Well, we don't know because nobody placed high enough in the total vote count to register. These are your starters:

I've come to take the All-star game for what it is: A voting popularity contest which the fans get mostly right. Only a couple of things bug me about the All-star selection process. One, I think there should be a minimum set of requirements for being selected like games played/available and/or stat thresholds. The NBA won't make any changes though because it doesn't matter to them who gets in, so long as the fans follow up the voting by watching and following the league.

Of course the biggest name that shouldn't be on the All-star roster, let alone starting, is Kobe Bryant. Not only has he had a terrible season, the Lakers are terrible. He's injured now, so he won't play, and someone will take his place.

The second thing I don't like about the AS selection process is that why the game itself means jack, the selection does. When contract negotiations are held and HOF decisions are made, or when talking about who's a better player, All-star appearances are a part of that. So either we should treat it like the exhibition that it is, or tweak the selection process.

The coaches will pick the reserves and while guys like Gordon Hayward and Derrick Favors have a case, it's so loaded in the West, they won't get in this season. It will take several All-star type seasons, more wins, and some retirements to make the squad in the West.

We should see Rudy Gobert though in New York this season for the Rising Stars Challenge. We could also see Exum and Burke. So the Jazz won't be entirely shut out.

Why ya gotta be so Rudy Gobert? Don't you the Bucks are human too?

If Rudy has a bigger name, this lands him in the NBA's top five of last night or on SportsCenter. He also gets the and-1 when Giannis Antetokounmpo fouls him.

My favorite part of the whole thing though might be Enes Kanter 's reaction.

Friday open poll...

Who makes the All-star team first for the Jazz? Hayward? Favors? Kanter? Some future draft pick? Never?