Houston Rockets guard Dante Exum has been officially ruled out for the remainder of the 2020-21 NBA season.
The news comes with little surprise to fans of the 25-year-old Australian, as he has remained sidelined since January 4th with a calf injury and hasn’t played since. Exum was on the court when he collapsed onto the floor after pushing off with his right foot, then seemingly turning back to see who kicked him in what looked like a typical Achilles injury.
Unfortunately significant concern for Aussie & Cleveland Cavalier Dante Exum. Push off/non-contact mechanism brings concern for achilles injury (even has classic “who kicked me” look behind), best hope for calf strain but doesn’t look good. Fingers crossed pic.twitter.com/TaqzIK63pe
— NRL PHYSIO (@nrlphysio) January 5, 2021
The fifth overall pick in the 2014 NBA Draft, Exum had fared relatively well early in the season, earning three starts in the six games that he played with the Cleveland Cavaliers before going down with a calf strain. Exum was later traded as part of the package going to Houston in the James Harden blockbuster. With the Rockets tanking, there was no incentive to push Exum in his return from injury, and the team instead opted to keep him on the shelf through the end of the year.
Exum will finish the 2020-21 season with just six games played while on the Cavaliers. Exum remains one of the league’s most injury-prone players. Since being drafted No. 5 overall in 2014, he’s appeared in just 245 games. As a pending free agent, Dante Exum will likely have to settle for a minimum value contract next season if he hopes to return to the NBA.
While Rockets fans will likely scroll right past this news, it does have a larger impact on followers of the Australian Boomers, as Exum was named to the squad’s preliminary 24-man roster heading into the 2021 Tokyo Olympic Games. With veteran NBA guards like Ben Simmons, Patty Mills and Matthew Dellavedova ahead of him on the depth chart and potentially “new look” Boomers Bryce Cotton or Matisse Thybulle, who are both in consideration for the team, it would’ve been an uphill climb for Exum to see a meaningful amount of minutes in Tokyo.
The injury does cost head coach Brian Goorjian some valuable backcourt depth, especially on the defensive end, as well as a talented, albeit injury-prone, combo guard.
Ethan Pechersky is a Philadelphia-based sportswriter with a deep love for Australia. Standing 5'10" with absolutely zero basketball talent to his name, he spends his time thinking he knows more than every coach and GM in the league, and being disappointed year in and year out by his beloved Jazz's early playoff exits.