US media savages injured Aussie Dante Exum

DANTE Exum’s injury has prompted the US media to assess his value in the NBA — and some of the commentary has been brutal.

DANTE Exum’s season-ending knee injury has prompted the US media to assess his value in the NBA — and some of the commentary has been less than complimentary.

Several scribes have sought to assure Utah Jazz fans there season isn’t a write-off before it’s begun but in doing so they’ve diminished Exum’s worth to one of the NBA’s up-and-coming teams.

Grantland’s Zach Lowe completed a detailed breakdown of Exum’s game, highlighting his minimal contribution on offence last season while averaging 4.8 points and 2.4 assists per game.

“Exum couldn’t really do anything on offence, save for chill in the corner and knock down wide-open 3s when his defender abandoned him to help on a more urgent threat,” Lowe wrote. “And, boy, did they abandon him. Exum had one of the lowest ‘gravity scores’ among every player who took the floor last season, per SportVU data provided to Grantland, meaning defenders strayed far from him. He shot miserably from deep when a defender was within even 6 feet of him, per NBA.com, and hit a blah 34 per cent from the corners overall.”

Lowe also tore apart the just-turned 20-year-old’s pick-and-roll game. “Last season Exum might have been the worst pick-and-roll ball handler in league history. He shot 15-of-58 out of that play, and turned the ball over on 46 per cent of the pick-and-rolls he finished — the highest qualifying individual rate ever recorded in the Synergy Sports database, which dates back to 2004,” Lowe wrote. “He dribbled around picks just fine, but once a help defender would block his path, Exum would melt into a puddle of panic. He picked up his dribble too early, or too late, mistimed passes, heaved the ball 10 feet over the head of his target across the court, and generally vomited away possessions. He looked off open players and threaded no-chance-in-hell passes to covered ones. He had no mid-range game. In other words: He was a teenager playing in the NBA.”

Exum rests his knee after injuring it playing for the Boomers against Slovenia.

Hoops blogger Ian Levy argued the Jazz could win a playoff berth without the young Australian.

“Exum’s injury is a negative from any angle, but it probably doesn’t significantly derail Utah’s hunt for a playoff spot this season,” Levy wrote. “It’s an enormous hill to climb with or without him. Statistically, Exum was a dramatic negative last season. Even if he improved by 50 per cent this season, he’d still be just barely above replacement level by an all-in-one metric like Box Plus-Minus. Both (teammates Gordon) Hayward and Alec Burks (who missed most of last season with a shoulder injury) are capable enough secondary ballhandlers to help cover for Trey Burke’s weaknesses and the lack of another proven option at point guard. The current strength of the Jazz is not built on Exum or his explosive athleticism.”

The main area Lowe and other NBA writers believe Exum’s absence will hurt the Jazz is on the defensive end. “Exum showed all the yips on defence we’d expect from a dude who turned 20 just last month, but he’s legitimately giant for a point guard, and his length created problems on some nights. Utah will be incrementally worse on defence with Burke in Exum’s place,” Lowe wrote.

Yahoo Sport’s Dan Devine went a step further, suggesting “a lengthy shelving for the young Aussie could still represent a significant detour in Utah’s road map back to contention”.

“A relative lack of on-the-ball aggression and off-the-ball shooting prowess were to be expected of a 19-year-old making the leap from Australian high school competition to facing off against NBA defences,” Devine wrote. “Exum’s ability to harass opposing guards, however — to use his length, quickness, foot speed and agility to mirror ball-handlers as they manoeuvred around the court, as captured by Sports Illustrated’s Rob Mahoney — was a very pleasant surprise, and helped make him an integral part of a Jazz team that ranked as far and away the NBA’s stingiest defence after mid-February.

“A full year of adding functional strength to his frame figured to make Exum more capable of absorbing contact and finishing around the basket, and the return to health of attacking two-guard Alec Burks alongside star swingman Gordon Hayward on the wing looked likely to limit Exum’s exposure as an on-ball creator, giving him both more opportunities to attack defences that had already been scrambled by an initial action and more breathing room to develop his playmaking talents at a measured pace without being called upon to serve as a primary table-setter.”

Originally published as US media savages injured Aussie Dante Exum