https://hoopshype.com/columns/david-nurse/whats-wrong-with-dante-exums-game
It might be hard to pass on Exum if he is available. The article also describes the weaknesses in his shooting stroke.
It might be hard to pass on Exum if he is available. The article also describes the weaknesses in his shooting stroke.
His ability to get out in transition and speed with the ball in his hands is top 10 in the NBA right now. There are a lot of players with great speed, but Exum’s ability to cultivate that speed with the ball in his hands is what makes him so dynamic in the open floor. If his world-class speed wasn’t enough, Exum is able to shift gears and change speeds very effectively making him an extremely tough player to defend in transition.
The toughest players to defend aren’t always the quickest and most athletic players, it is the players who are able to constantly change speeds and always put pressure on the defense. This is where Exum’s personal analysis of himself really does draw comparisons to Manu Ginobli; shifty and unassuming.
A great skill set ability that more NBA players need to realize the importance of – deceptiveness. Exum has harnessed this skill set at young age and with his high level ball control and natural feel for the game, he is able to utilize this craft to create for his teammates. Hence, why I have labeled him as neither a point guard or a two-guard, but instead simply as a playmaker.
All of these weapons in Exum’s arsenal are great and extremely tantalizing to an NBA franchise. And I haven’t even mentioned his explosive first step, rebounding range for a guard, and ability to draw fouls at the rim.
But the single most telling factor of why I am convinced that a player this skilled but still less seen to the public than a UFO sighting in a cornfield will be highly successful at the next level is his basketball IQ and maturity. Maturity and 18-year-old kid are not often seen in the same sentence or anywhere close for that matter. But that is not the case for Exum. He is mature beyond his years and has a basketball IQ and natural feel for the game that makes it appear like he was born to play basketball. Well, I guess he was.
Thank his father Cecil Exum for that. A teammate of Michael Jordan on the 1982 North Carolina national championship team and a stint in the NBA followed by a long career in Australia, basketball is literally in Exum’s blood. His ability to see the next play before it happens and pick and choose the correct situations throughout the flow of a game when to look to score and when to look to create is the Basketball IQ savviness that that Exum possesses.