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Dante Exum declares for 2014 NBA Draft

Mantis said:
The part where he's playing for his school? Definitely. That's about the same level as when he's training against the chairs. Maybe even easier.

High-school ball in Australia isn't like high-school ball in America, not only is basketball a secondary sport here (Australian Football or Rugby is the top winter sport, depending on which state you're in), it isn't even the top level of junior basketball, as each state runs its own junior league which would be closer in standard to high-school ball. However, the best junior basketballers in Australia, like Dante, get scholarships to the Australian Institute of Sport (AIS) where they run an intensive training program. While at the AIS they still go to high school as normal, and the closest high school to the AIS is Lake Ginninderra (hence "Lakers"), so most of the AIS players go there. Basically his high-school team was an All-Star line-up against regular schools where basketball isn't even the #1 sport. No surprise his team won.

The AIS program, though, features intensive training, comparable to college-level, and with an emphasis on fundamentals, and games against competent opposition. The training session in the vid is an AIS session. The AIS program was started in the late '70s to produce basketballers that could compete against the college-level USA players then playing in the Olympics, and its aim is still to produce Olympic-standard basketballers. Almost every Aussie that has played in the NBA (including Longley, Bogut, Mills, Baynes, Dellavedova and Andersen) is an AIS Graduate.

From the AIS website, about their program:



Dante is a member of the junior national team, and there are some brief snippets of a game from the U19 World Championships in there. Dante is also part of the senior national team program, and he was the youngest player ever to be included in the squad, although his on-court appearances have been brief.

So basically, Dante has been participating in a college-level program for two years, and has played against the best players in the word in his age group, yet this video focuses on him playing in what is a glorified pick-up game.
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Hey bro, are you the guy with wife and kids wearing Jazz gear who sent the photo to Root Sports in the "Where in the World" segment a couple of games ago??!!??!!!


They were also Australians.
 
Awwww **** I was wrong!! So umm, what would be the point in drafting him? He's Burks.
 
Batman said:
Bleacher Report? I expected better from you, Spy haha
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It has all the same tweets and quotes you'll find in other articles, only this one has a sweet *** video.

People bitch about BR too much. The quality completely varies from article to article. I've read some insanely good stuff on BR.
 
spycam1 said:
It has all the same tweets and quotes you'll find in other articles, only this one has a sweet *** video.

People bitch about BR too much. The quality completely varies from article to article. I've read some insanely good stuff on BR.
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Pretty much. It has the same pr issue that every rag that'll let any old amateur or novice publish in. I'll take it over the garbage SB Nation manufactures (AllThatAmare excluded). Nothing's worse than reading homer fans without a clue who think they know everything. That's SB's Jazz section in a nutshell.
 
spycam1 said:
I've read some insanely good stuff on BR.
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Really?!! I am incredulous, but I will be more open minded about reading articles from BR. Honestly, the first 10 or so articles I read from bleacher report were so bad it left an indelible mark.
 
This is classic "skipping steps" He shoulda gone to college. Like his talent and physical gifts. Inadequate BB IQ right now, esp for PG (could improve, who knows?). Will be a major project, what team will have patience to develop him as he struggles for first 2 years?
 
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