Entering his fifth season, Melbourne’s Dante Exum faces a critical juncture within his NBA career. Originally drafted fifth by the Utah Jazz in 2014, Exum’s NBA journey so far has been heavily interrupted to say the least.
Now a year removed from overcoming multiple knee and shoulder injuries, 2018 provided us a glimpse of his incredible potential, particularly during the Jazz’s playoff run where he was able to play a crucial role on defence against James Harden and the Houston Rockets.
Exum’s first season saw him play every game, even starting 41 times for a Jazz team who just missed the playoffs. During the NBA off-season after his rookie year, Exum tore the ACL in his left knee playing for the Australian National team. He subsequently missed the entire 2015-16 NBA season as well as the Boomers 2016 Olympics campaign where they narrowly missed out on Australia’s first Olympic medal in men’s basketball.
In 2016-17, Exum resumed his NBA career, playing 66 regular season games and starting in 26 of them, finishing the season as a core piece of coach Quin Snyder’s back court rotation.
In what was a contact expiring season for Exum, he again battled injury while trying to cement his place in the NBA. Missing much of the season due to shoulder surgery in October, people started to align the word “bust” with Dante’s career, until he returned to play the last 14 regular season games and 10 playoff appearances, a collection of games which quickly silenced the doubters.
Dante went from potential NBA bust to the $33 million dollar man within a few short months. The Jazz inked the six foot six swing-man to a healthy three year deal this off-season and Exum will be keen to repay the faith by the Jazz when the 2018-19 NBA season kicks off this week.
Exum’s three year contract is a clear indication that Jazz management have a clear and precise role in mind for Exum moving forward. As a result it will be interesting to see how coach Snyder juggles the bevy of options he has at his disposal within the guard positions.
The extraordinary rookie season of Donovan Mitchell has seen his emergence as the future of the franchise and while many were sceptical of the signing of Ricky Rubio last off-season, his importance and value was missed during the last few playoff games where he was out with injury.
With the likes of Alec Burks, Raul Neto and now rookie Grayson Allen all potentially earning minutes in the guard rotation, Exum’s game time may be limited early on unless he delivers on the potential Utah still believe he has.
Coach Snyder’s strong emphasis on defence means Exum will get an opportunity for minutes when the team need a lock down defender to stifle some of the NBA’s best. Exum’s length and athleticism makes him an elite NBA defender, potentially even an All-NBA Defensive team contender, but unless he can deliver on the offensive end for the Jazz, coach Snyder may be forced to look to other names on the Jazz bench for regular minutes at the guard spot.
Australian fans should be excited to see what an injury free Exum could possibly do this season. If not just through curiosity, in the hopes that a peak Exum could give the Boomers the edge they need to bring home a bronze, silver or dare say it, gold medal in the next Olympics or the rapidly approaching FIBA World Cup.
The starting point guard position seems firmly in the control of Ricky Rubio for now, but over a gruelling 82 game NBA season, Dante will get his chance to show what he can do as a starter a number of times this season.
As we’ve seen Patty Mills play understudy to Tony Parker at San Antonio for seven years to now be the team’s primary point guard, perhaps this is the future for Dante. With a strong end to last season and an incredible display during this years NBA summer league, it seems only a matter of when, not if Exum will find his way into the Jazz’s starting line-up, seeming very rushed however if that occurs this season.
While Exum remains somewhat of an unknown quantity that still garners huge potential, this season will be the foundation for what he will mean to the Utah Jazz and the Australian Boomers in the future.