Dante Exum comes of age in NBA to boost Boomers ahead of Paris Olympics
It’s taken him a decade, but Dante Exum has finally made it in the NBA, and it comes at the perfect time for Australia’s Boomers.
The imposing perimeter defence has helped. So too the smooth playmaking as the anchor for the bench of the fast rising Dallas Mavericks. Hitting 50% from the three-point line certainly doesn’t hurt.
But the moment that solidified the 28-year-old’s status among the world’s best basketball players came in Sunday’s match against the Houston Rockets.
Exum had the game in his hands with just two seconds left. The Mavs were down by three against their Texas rivals. As the clock wound down, the backup guard wearing the number zero had been found with a pass from Dallas’ best player, Luka Dončić, under pressure from swarming Rockets defenders.
From the right side of the court, just outside the three-point line, the Australian looked up and swiftly released. The clock faded to one, then zero. The buzzer sounded, and the net billowed.
Exum – by way of Melbourne, Utah, Cleveland, Spain and Serbia – had arrived.
After the 147-136 overtime victory, Kyrie Irving gathered the players and owner Mark Cuban into the middle of the court to celebrate the victory, but moreso their longsuffering Australian whose luck appears to have finally turned.
Hooting and hollering, and slapping Exum on the back, the players and the entire Mavs organisation showed their faith in the softly spoken Australian. Coach Jason Kidd said trust was the key to the victory. Irving said Exum had his confidence: “The fundamentals that Dante exuded when he needed to make the shot – balance, shot ready – was ready for the moment.”
Exum was sent by the Mavs PR rep to the podium for the post-match press conference, usually reserved for the night’s best story. He said the support of Irving and Dončić is “big”.
“Just missing one shot, and they are coming to you like, ‘shoot the next one, shoot the next one,’” he said. “In those big moments when you know you need to knock it down, it just reminds you of the times that they have had your back.”
Exum has had to earn the trust of
his Mavericks teammates as an unproven outsider in the hyper-competitive world of the NBA. But for the national team, he has long been a valued contributor.
He debuted at age 18, and has proved a complementary piece during the Boomers’ rose gold era. He played 20 minutes as Australia overcame Dončić’s Slovenia in the bronze-medal playoff in Tokyo and averaged nine points across the tournament. His minutes and production was similar at the 2023 World Cup, where he was stuck behind Patty Mills and Josh Giddey in the rotation.
Mills has struggled for court time this NBA season, and Giddey has been through ups and downs. Exum’s career best form, and particularly his shot and defence, means he is set to take a vital role on another medal tilt in Paris in coming months. But it’s been a slow grind.
Exum, the son of NBL star Cecil Exum, was one of the most intriguing prospects in the 2014 draft. Then a lanky, athletic, if unproven playmaking guard with size to defend most wings, he was touted as the best international player in the draft, and was taken fifth by the Utah Jazz.
The 18-year-old was one of the youngest players selected, and slowly found his way in the league in his first season, when he played all 82 games. But he tore his anterior cruciate ligament in his left knee while playing for the Boomers that off-season, sending his career along a meander that would test his resolve. A separated shoulder just before his fourth NBA season killed any momentum he had at the Jazz, and his seemingly perennial place on the injury report led one Reddit user to ask, “Is Dante Exum the most injury stricken player in NBA history?”
“I think everyone, once you come in, you have these high hopes,” Exum told CBS Sports last month. “I played 82 [games] my first season, and then didn’t play a single game in the second season. So it’s definitely hard pulling back expectations.”
Exum bounced through Cleveland and was waived by Houston in 2021 days before the start of the season, and some were suggesting a move back to the NBL – where he is a part owner of the South East Melbourne Phoenix – would be best for him.
He finally got a clear run without major injuries during stints in Spain and Serbia, and signed last year for an asset-depleted Mavs team desperate for guard depth behind salary-cap sponges Dončić and Irving. His contract, at less than US$10m over two years, is the cheapest among regular performers for the Mavs.
Yet Exum has now become an essential player as the franchise climbs towards a likely showdown with the LA Clippers in the first round of the playoffs later this month. In December, when filling in for Irving, Exum averaged 15 points and more than four assists in 31 minutes a game, often being asked to defend on-ball, then create and score at the other end.
A good shooter will average 40% on three-pointers in the NBA. That makes Exum’s 50% rate this season – from more than 100 shots – extraordinary. Nobody else is as accurate, off as much volume. At crunch time in close matches, he’s even better, scoring eight from 12 attempts. It shows the kind of role he may be capable of performing for the Boomers at the Paris Games, which start in July.
Although some may view his career as one of misfortune, Exum said recently he is grateful for the experience he gained on the stops along the way. And it’s likely to better prepare him for Paris. Even after triggering an almighty roar inside the American Airlines Center in Dallas on Sunday, he told American reporters he had played in louder.
“No dig to the Dallas fans or anything, it was great in there,” he said. “But over in Europe, it’s just a different beast.”