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Nick Turchiaro-USA TODAY Sports

5. Dante Exum, Utah Jazz

It's now been just three years since the Utah Jazz used the No. 5 pick of the 2014 NBA draft on Dante Exum, though injuries wiped away an entire season and leave him entering his third true campaign in Salt Lake City. The Australian point guard is still only 22 years old, giving him plenty of time to continue living up to his immense potential.

Exum was a much more confident defender last year, learning how to recover against spot-up shooters and dash around off-ball screens to keep up with his assignments. Once he figures out the nuances of pick-and-roll coverage and stops treating on-ball picks like brick walls, he'll finally be leveraging his physicality into unabashedly positive play on the less glamorous end.

But it's on offense where his breakthrough should come. Exum's shot might no longer be broken after he knocked down 52.4 percent of his field-goal attempts and 41.7 percent of his triples in three games at Utah Summer League. Those numbers will regress against stiffer competition, but even minor strides as he continues to develop his all-around play will allow him to serve as one of the NBA's top-tier backups for the Jazz.

4. Delon Wright, Toronto Raptors

This breakthrough may occur out of sheer necessity.

Kyle Lowry is 31 years old and needs to lessen his regular-season responsibilities so he can avoid falling apart during the playoffs. Cory Joseph is now functioning as a backup 1-guard for the Indiana Pacers after an offseason trade. And that leaves Delon Wright spearheading the second unit while serving as Lowry's primary relief.

The 25-year-old may not be much of a shooter, but he's a confident player with the ball in his hands. He should thrive while running pick-and-rolls with Jonas Valanciunas, as well as pick-and-pops with Serge Ibaka. Moreover, he can leverage his 6'5" frame into quality defense, even crossmatching within the backcourt to alleviate some of DeMar DeRozan's responsibilities.

Obviously, Wright isn't taking over Lowry's job. But don't be surprised if Toronto feels comfortable that it's found its point guard of the future by the end of the 2017-18 campaign.

3. Patrick Beverley, Los Angeles Clippers

Patrick Beverley's breakout won't be a statistical one, so much as a shift in perception that finally recognizes him as the upper-tier player he's become. The Arkansas product thrived during his time alongside James Harden and the Houston Rockets, but he'll be viewed as a leader for the Los Angeles Clippers.

Working with DeAndre Jordan gives him the oop-finisher necessary to throw plenty of easy alleys. Playing with Blake Griffin will allow him to spot up on the perimeter and wait for the defense to be sucked in toward the power forward before connecting on a catch-and-shoot jumper.

Plus, he gets to shift back to his natural position.

Few players were better in a three-and-D role last year than Beverley, who placed No. 2 among point guards in ESPN.com's defensive real plus/minus (ironically enough, behind only Chris Paul—the man he's replacing) while ranking in the 80th percentile for spot-up points per possession (PPP). Those jobs should be even easier in his new home, given the unorthodox distribution of Griffin and Danilo Gallinari and the ease of defending with Jordan cleaning up the interior.

2. Reggie Jackson, Detroit Pistons

Perhaps poised for a bounce-back season after his disastrous 2016-17, Reggie Jackson is a risky choice here. He still isn't fully cleared for basketball activities while recovering from knee tendinitis, though head coach Stan Van Gundy has said, per Vince Ellis of the Detroit Free Press, "He should be good to go for the start of camp."

This is the right approach, standing in stark contrast to what the Pistons did last summer. By pushing Jackson to participate as fully as possible, they may have hindered his recovery and forced him to spend much of the actual season hobbling around. His defense was atrocious because he couldn't keep up with opposing guards. He didn't possess as much bounce, and his quick first step was anything but.

But Jackson has broken out before, to the point that he was in the All-Star conversation during the 2015-16 season. If he heals fully, there's no reason he can't reenter that tier. He just might not need to, as Duncan Smith of Piston Powered pointed out:

"If Jackson’s rehab does the trick and he can return in good form, he doesn’t need to be a fringe All Star to help this team like he did in 2015-16. He had his best three-point shooting season last year, and he took a higher percentage of his shots from long range than in any season since his second year in 2012-13.

"He can be used off ball more, with Avery Bradley being used as a primary facilitator, taking some of that focus off him and allowing him to spot up and move off screens. He doesn’t need to be the first, second and third options for both scoring and facilitating, as Bradley is more than adequate at both and Tobias Harris established himself last season as a go-to scorer on this team."

1. Jeremy Lin, Brooklyn Nets

A healthy Jeremy Lin is a dangerous force, especially now that he's surrounded by far more talent than has previously joined him during the opening salvo of his Brooklyn Nets career. D'Angelo Russell and Allen Crabbe give him shooters to whom he can pass, and the Timofey Mozgov-Jarrett Allen combination, while no Brook Lopez, can set hard screens to free Lin for aggressive drives toward the hoop.

Though "Linsanity" wasn't evoked in 2016-17, he had the best offensive season of his career during the 36 games in which he appeared. The three-point stroke came around, he continued to minimize turnovers and he kept excelling as a PnR ball-handler.

That should remain true in 2017-18, just with the luxury of more health and better talent to take pressure away. It's a deadly combination for one of the league's more underrated floor generals, and it should finally allow Lin to be viewed by the national audience as more than a one-year flash in the pan.