Utah Jazz: Three silver linings to the Dante Exum injury

Jazz may be able to get a future star on a very friendly contract

For anybody who watched Dante Exum in preseason thus far, it was pretty hard to deny his star potential. Sure, Exum’s been touted as such since entering the league and has had a hard time living up to the lofty expectations so far. Furthermore, his preseason play came against two teams that were far beneath NBA talent.

Nevertheless, there are some skills and abilities on the court that simply hold up regardless of competition. And make no mistake about it, Exum looked dang good. People seem to forget, too, that he’s just 22-years old, meaning his upside is still significantly higher than almost anybody else on this Jazz team.

Therefore, I know that I, for one, and I imagine most if not all of Jazz brass, still has very high hopes that Exum can turn into a star in this league. As Tony Jones of the Salt Lake Tribune stated following Exum’s injury, the game finally appeared to be slowing down for him, and his basketball instincts, quick first step and incredible length and athleticism were all starting to come together.

With that being the case, despite yet another injury setback for the young Aussie, the Jazz still are very likely planning to bring him back after this season. One of the reasons why the 2017-18 campaign was going to be so exciting for Dante was because he is in a contract year and would have had a ton to prove as he looks for a new contract.

Now, however, especially if he misses the entire year, he won’t have much of a past acumen to prove that he’s worthy of a hefty raise. The Jazz will still likely look to take care of him and show that they indeed trust him, but the fact of the matter is with two out of four seasons lost, Exum has little leverage to push for an enormous contract.

Therefore, the Jazz find themselves in a situation where, while Dante’s injury is frustrating to say the least for the time being, it may allow them to sign him to a new and quite affordable contract moving forward. Then, once he’s healthy and back in action, he still has shown all the signs that he can turn into a star player.

If it all works out that nicely, the Jazz could end up with a star on their hands at a very reasonable price, a la the Steph Curry situation. That’s by no means to say Exum is the next Steph Curry, but the idea of a great player at a low rate allowing other players to be added into the fold is a very reassuring picture for Jazz fans to imagine.

Time will tell how long Exum is out and how this injury truly does affect his pay once he hits restricted free agency at the end of the year, but one thing is certain, he’ll cost a lot less now than he would have had he had an absolutely amazing season. If that ends up working in Utah’s favor, then they’ll probably be willing to cope with one more year of setback in order to have several years of Exum at his finest and hopefully a daunting team around him.