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By Alex Kirschenbaum
Contributing Entertainment Writer
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Veteran guard Dante Exum struggled a bit under the weight of great expectations during his first stint in the NBA. He was selected with the fifth pick in the 2014 draft by the Utah Jazz but was waylaid by major injury issues. Things escalated to the point where he missed an entire season in 2015-16 and played just 14 games in another (2017-18). He was eventually flipped to the Cleveland Cavaliers as a reclamation project in 2019-20. He failed to take off there, too, struggling to score at the NBA level due to shooting issues.
The Aussie spent 2021-22 and 2022-23 playing internationally, with stints on pro clubs in Spain and Serbia. Now, he's back in the most competitive basketball league in the world, and playing for an intriguing Western Conference playoff contender in the Dallas Mavericks. And Exum isn't just part of the team, he's actually a key impact player, helping shore up the club's wing defense -- which greatly needs the help, given that it's starting Luka Doncic and Kyrie Irving in its backcourt. Both All-Star guards are terrific players, but consistent defense is not their MO.
Surprisingly, Exum is also shooting pretty well, too. He's averaging 8.5 points on .552/.500/.766 shooting splits, with that 50% three point conversion rate happening on 1.9 triple attempts per bout. The 6'5" vet is also averaging 2.8 assists, 2.6 boards and 0.5 steals a night, in just 19.4 minutes.
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As Jake Fischer of Yahoo Sports reports, Exum recently explained why he felt that playing with Barcelona and Partizan could better help set up his NBA comeback than toiling in the G League. "It's always a risk. Not many people go to Europe and are able to come back," Exum said. "It's hard to get back."
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"I think it's just comfortability, consistency and confidence," Exum reflected on how his shooting stroke has taken leaps and bounds. "That was the one thing I've tried to improve. But I think a lot of times when you're shooting and you miss one, you kinda get in your head a little bit. I try not to let that happen anymore. At what point do you become a shooter in the sense of how many am I willing to miss before I stop shooting? And I want that number to be high."
"The experience in Europe, for Exum to play over there and fight to get back here, has helped him a lot," Mavericks head coach Jason Kidd told Fischer. "He's fit right in with playing off Luka and [Irving]. He's played at a very high level from running the show to knocking down threes and then defensively helping us as a big guard."
When Exum plays next to both Doncic and Irving in three-guard lineups (although Doncic is a pretty big guard at 6'7"), Fischer writes that PBPStats.com suggests the club boasts an offensive rating of 124.8, which is three points better than tandem lineups of Irving and Doncic without Exum. That lineup also is currently registering a 112.9 defensive rating, which would rank in the top 10 among NBA teams for the year. At 40-29, the Mavericks currently occupy the Western Conference's seventh seed, but are just 0.5 games behind the 40-28 Sacramento Kings for the sixth seed. Several clubs are jockeying for the right to be that sixth seed, as it would let teams avoid playing an extra play-in tournament games, and head right for the playoffs proper.
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