Dante Exum Turnovers Key To Future Success

Jan 2, 2015; Salt Lake City, UT, USA; Utah Jazz guard Dante Exum (11) tries to slow Atlanta Hawks forward Paul Millsap (4) down and Millsap bring the ball up the court during the third quarter at EnergySolutions Arena. Atlanta Hawks won the game 98-92. Mandatory Credit: Chris Nicoll-USA TODAY Sports

Ed: Today we welcome a guest spot from Allen Schowengerdt, a life long Utah Jazz fan, former college basketball player for the Westminster Griffins, and avid overall sports enthusiast. Allen makes an argument that Dante Exum turnovers are key to his and the Jazz’s future success

It is no secret that the Utah Jazz have very high hopes for their 19 year old rookie point guard Dante Exum. He has already shown a lot of things to be excited about for such a young player. We have seen a good understanding of the game, passing skills, great length, and quickness on the defensive end of the floor.

Another thing people have talked about as a positive is that he doesn’t turn the ball over, which is a good thing for a point guard in the NBA. I would beg to differ. Dante Exum turnovers are key to success if he ever wants to become the NBA player we hope he can be.

I look at Dante Exum as having a similar physical make up of players like Russell Westbrook and John Wall. All three are longer point guards, with explosive speed, good quickness, and questionable jump shots when they entered the league. Each of those guys was 20 years old during their rookie year, so maybe we have another year to wait on this, but let’s take a look at what they did during their rookie year compared to what Dante has done so far.

Dante Exum has committed, through 39 games, 43 turnovers in 727 minutes played. That’s 1 turnover every 16.91 minutes that he has played. That number for Westbrook was one turnover every 9.74 minutes, and for Wall it was one turnover every 9.98. This means that Westbrook and Wall turned the ball over at almost twice the rate that Exum has so far. I believe this is vital to the development of a playmaker.

Exum needs to go out there, be more aggressive, and actually learn what he can, and can’t, do at the NBA level. Turnovers are a natural part of that process. For his first couple of years people thought that Westbrook was wild and shot too much. Now they still think he shoots too much, but they also consider him a top three point guard in the league.

The pick-and-roll ball handler needs to be selfish. Be selfish until you can’t anymore, because that is what will open your teammates up for good shots

Speaking of shooting, this is another area where Exum needs to be more aggressive.

For the season Exum has 181 field goal attempts, and 107 of them are three-pointers. That equates to 0.25 shots per minute played, and well over half of them are threes.

Westbrook and Wall were at 0.41 and 0.37 shots per minute. Both of those players shot 88% of their shots from two-point range. Part of that is because these guys were not good shooters as rookies, and Exum has been a bit better than we expected him to be from the three-point line. But this also shows that these players were being aggressive and attacking the defenses.

Looking at these numbers based off of an observation, it seems that every time Exum did attack and get into the paint, he is trying to look to pass (and often specifically to throw a lob to Rudy Gobert).

My college coach Tommy Connor, now head assistant coach at the University of Utah, always said that the pick-and-roll ball handler needs to be selfish. Be selfish until you can’t anymore, because that is what will open your teammates up for good shots.

Exum is not being selfish, and NBA teams know that and are sticking to their guys when he drives. This leads to Dante just dribbling back out and passing the ball around the perimeter, which will not get it done.

As noted earlier, Dante Exum still has another year before he is the same age that Westbrook and Wall were during their rookie year. But for the rest of the season I would like to see Exum push it a bit: attack the paint looking to score, up his two point shot attempts, try to make more plays.

This may lead to more turnovers and probably some ugly, difficult shots. But it will also lead to Dante Exum learning what he can do in the NBA, and how to do it. This needs to happen now, while the Jazz are not in contention. What is the harm in that? If he does this it could help lead the Jazz to contention in a few years.

-Allen Schowengerdt

Get at Allen on twitter, @allenschow, an excellent basketball follow and he “will talk sports until you can’t anymore.” We hope to bring you more insights from Allen here at PnB in the near future!