Dante Exum: A Utah Jazz enigma five years and counting
By Joshua Beal
Five years into his NBA career, Utah Jazz fans are still waiting for the oft-injured Dante Exum to become the player they once so anxiously hoped he could be.
When I first saw the news, my boyish-fan-boy heart cracked like glass – Dante Exum has a partially torn patellar tendon in his right knee. I saw the headline about the Utah Jazz guard on Friday night when it popped off my Twitter timeline via The Athletic’s Tony Jones. Moments later, something inside me cratered. I’ve always been a Dante believer. But, man oh man, has his career been plagued by bad luck and some stark setbacks. One can’t help but consider labeling the gifted Aussie as injury prone.
There are a few still chanting the series-of-freak-injuries narrative. I want to chant with them despite that narrative feeling like it’s running on an empty tank with the gas mileage of a Hummer. Today, I have a few things to say about Dante, chief among them being… well, I’ll save that for last. So, in the parlance of how they said it in my grandaddy’s day, indulge me for just a few minutes.
Among the “upper crust” of Jazz Twitter (Haha I’m just having fun), I’ve seen some discussion about Exum Island and the real estate prices there (shout out to Bill Simmons and Zach Lowe for giving the world Waiters Island, which by the way is— *pauses for laughter*—neither here nor there). The question of Dante’s rightful place in the hearts of Jazz fans has definitely proved polarizing.
The past few days in particular, that polarization is a bit more pronounced with more masses of Jazz fans taking part in the exodus of Exum Island, while a few faithful Dante believers remain (white-bearded-ball-is-life-Twitter sages is a better way to describe the Dante apologists, or nah?), though it is worth noting initial fan reactions to news of this ilk can be quite a spectacle of bat poo crazy.
Buying stock in Dante has always been about letting your imagination spread its wings and go. Exum came into the league an enigmatic prospect with unique burst. In terms of straight line speed, he was a lighting strike. The first time I saw it came in a preseason game vs the LA Clippers. On a drive to the basket, my jaw clanked against the floor in my living room as I watched him blaze and glide to the rim, his defender helplessly choking on dust in pursuit.
I guess that aspect alone is a big part of what made him so tantalizing. But it wasn’t just that. At 6’6″ with a 6’9″ wingspan, the 19-year-old point guard presented a profile with shades of a young Penny Hardaway. Not to mention, Chad Ford raved about his mental makeup, saying in a podcast with David Locke that he tested off the charts at the combine in a test meant to measure a player’s competitive psyche.
Yet, Dante’s first season as a Jazzman didn’t live up to the hype. And that was fine, young players rarely ever do. Was he pedestrian? Sure. Still, his rookie season felt like a small success. In terms of point guards, he came into the league as raw and unpolished as they come, but still managed to get the starting nod over Trey Burke, mostly because he was more versatile/capable on defense and Trey was having a rough year efficiency wise.
With Dante starting, the Jazz defense became elite (this is, obviously, mostly a result of Rudy Gobert becoming the starter over Enes Kanter) and the team ended the season on a roll. It felt like Dante was on track to become a core piece of the franchise.
Of course, that’s not exactly what happened. Before the sun set on that summer, Dante would tear his ACL in an exhibition game across the pond. He’d miss his entire sophomore year and when he finally came back in year three, he struggled mightily, as most players do in the first year back from an ACL tear.
Even still, Dante had moments where everything that made him intriguing would pop on my TV screen. Every time he drove to the basket, I held my breath in anticipation, but a lot of those forays to the rim ended with turnovers, missed layups and head scratching frustration. Often times I thought I saw rust sprinkle down from his palms. His face would sag. I didn’t think he believed and I didn’t either. But then I’d circle back around: “Gotta be the ACL,” I’d tell myself. But Dante was never good offensively anyway, and maybe it wasn’t fair to expect him to be.
The majority of guys who come into the league as unskilled offensive players don’t ever really figure it out. I could probably name around 50 gifted athletes with star-studded potential whose careers withered away as time and the promise of their potential were replaced with game film and a formidable sample size.
Their ghosts wander the necropolis of NBA busts and we speak of them as an unfulfilled vision of promise banished to the realm of basketball vagabonds. As I write this, the immortal words of Coach Riley to Gordon Bombay in Mighty Ducks unfurl in my head “You’re not even a has been; you’re a never was.” In a relative sense, it’s quite fitting.
So as each game in year three came and went, I started to prepare myself, albeit irrationally, for the possibility that Dante’s career as well as the collective belief in his future was set to start fading. That it might be just a matter of time. It isn’t always easy to stave off recency bias, especially when you consider the nature of fandom is to lose perspective and engage in irrational thinking.
Even as I heard the numbers geeks spout off stats illustrating Dante was improving, the eye test never seemed to reflect as much for me. Yet even so, by spring of year three, his true shooting percentage and efficiency had climbed to above average and with that followed in my head this inkling to believe.
It wasn’t the 2016-17 playoffs that got me thinking again – “Dante could be a star” (though Game 4 versus the Warriors yielded promise enough). I used to always say, “I’m not sure I’ve seen Dante take more than 10 shots off the dribble, or dribble all the way to the basket with his left hand.” Summer League gave us some sample size of both.
It’s a cheap metaphor, but history tells us the Vegas annual event is itself fools gold most of the time. But after Gordon Hayward bolted for Boston, latching onto the quixotic was, at least for me, a temptation hard-pressed to outright deny.
But then, once again, the basketball gods frowned down upon Dante and the Jazz in the form of T.J. Warren leaping in a preseason game and from about the same place where MJ leaps in the climatic moments of the classic sports film Space Jam (Hyperbole? Is it? Are you talking about my use of the term classic sports film to describe… or…), to try and block Dante at the rim. But instead of making the spectacular block, he Shaqted a Fool and fell on top of Dante, sending him, and his season, crashing down.
Okay. Fast forward to January 2019. Dante rolls an ankle, sustaining a bone bruise. Fast forward past the 25 games he misses. Dante returns from injury to log minutes in three games but leaves the third game with knee soreness. The next day, it is reported an MRI has revealed a partially torn patellar tendon in his right knee. This is starting to feel scripted, or like clock work or… something.
So here we are, almost five years later, waiting on Dante. Not waiting for him to blossom into a superstar, as those days are long gone, but waiting for him to fully unfurl for us, as if he had some great secrets left to reveal, so that our expectations could better be set aright and our 2014 irrational hopes be more formally laid to rest.
That said, I’m not ready to give up on Exum. But I suppose that may mean different things to different people. Dante isn’t going to be a superstar. I mean, I imagine it’s a more likely outcome that the New York Knicks (wouldn’t the New York Pedestrians be so much more apropos?) win the title sometime in our lifetime than Dante ever becomes an All-Star.
dark. Next. Utah Jazz alums: Iso Joe, Big Al and other former Jazzmen go BIG3
But if we are talking in terms of a quality rotation guy with a defensive prowess that can swing a playoff series, or a respectable offensive game equipped with league average 3-point shooting and an uncanny ability to get to the rim, AND finish at an above average rate, I’m all in on believing he can become that guy. If he stays healthy.
But I suppose, all things considered, even that might be too big of an ask.