If you’ve ever been injured and in considerable pain, the last thing you need to hear is someone saying, “You’re lucky. You could have been killed.”

As if the pain wasn’t real enough.

Still, I’m going to say it: It could have been worse for the Jazz.

Dante Exum tore his ACL last week, playing in an international game. Jazz fans reacted like a plague had descended. In reality, the team only lost its starting point guard. That’s disappointing, but not cataclysmic. It’s an injury he’ll get over. And it really could have been worse. He could have fractured his foot or knee, a problem that sometimes persists until it ends a player’s career. Or it might have been Gordon Hayward, Rudy Gobert or Derrick Favors that went down in a freakish summer incident. All the aforementioned players are more important to next year’s success than the guard who averaged 4.8 points his rookie season.

Exum has potential, but so far that’s mostly what we’ve seen. He has a rare skill set. But this is a side road, not a cliff overhang.

My advice is to calm down.

Jazz fans can catch him on the rebound.

It’s understandable why there has been so much consternation. Exum’s defensive rating in March was better than Kawhi Leonard or Gobert. I felt sorry for him when he went down. The instant I saw his heel hit the floor in that awkward way, I thought, “Uh-oh.” I’m sure he thought something even more descriptive.

Some are already speculating Exum is injury prone. He missed virtually all summer league play due to an ankle sprain. It’s possible the Jazz have another Greg Oden on their hands. But that comparison, at this point, is wildly speculative. Exum played in all 82 regular-season games as a rookie.

Those who say the injury torpedoed Jazz hopes are ignoring the possibility Trey Burke will have his best season. I’m not convinced Burke is a true starting point guard in the NBA. He lost his spot to Exum midway through last season. But on the sunshiny side, not many teams have a backup point guard better than Burke. He has started 111 NBA games.

John Stockton didn’t become the fulltime Jazz starter until his fourth year. He started five games his rookie season, 38 the next year and just two his third. That’s because Stockton was playing behind Rickey Green, a one-time All-Star.

It wasn’t until his fourth season that Stockton flourished, getting 79 starts.

Burke is beginning his third season.

While it’s true this would have been a major growth year for Exum, the Jazz could yet be decent. Utah did go 19-10 after the All-Star break, with Exum starting, but it wasn’t his scoring that made that happen.

Jazz fans are wringing their hands because the free agency pool is shallow this late in the summer. What will the team do for a replacement? It had a stroke of foresight in July, signing Raul Neto from Brazil. It already had Bryce Cotton, an undersized but overachieving guard from last season.

So the Jazz got lucky, in a sense.

Meanwhile, rumors late in the week had them looking into a trade for Washington guard Garrett Temple.

They’re not entirely helpless.

Exum’s wingspan and foot speed on defense will be missed. But last season’s surge had more to do with Gobert than Exum. With Burke starting, the Jazz might not actually be worse in the win-loss columns, just behind schedule.

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The team has been saying for years that it is young and fans need patience. Now such talk will begin again. Realistically, Burke isn’t going to develop into the next Stockton. And Exum isn’t going to make a major leap in a year that he watches from the bench. But a fatal blow?

More like a nasty spill on a bike.

Now get back up and ride.

Email: rock@desnews.com; Twitter: @therockmonster; Blog: Rockmonster Unplugged

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