‘It’s hard to get back’: How Dante Exum returned to the NBA and found success with Luka Dončić and the Mavs

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Dante Exum still shoots it the same. He’s like an action figure standing there in the opposite corner, knees bent into a strong base, his motion after the catch still compact like he was barely taken out of the box back in Utah. His jumper looks nearly identical to when Exum joined the Jazz as a teenager, still raising the rock from his right hip straight up to his shoulder, cranking like a catapult until the very top of his release. And yet, something has clearly changed for Exum this season with the Dallas Mavericks.

After two winters in NBA exile, after picking the brains of Europe’s greatest shooters, Exum has returned to the league with a vengeance — most recently delivering a 4-of-4 display from deep, including a dagger triple with 37 seconds left in San Antonio on Tuesday. He’s sporting a newfound accuracy, having now drained 50% of his 80 long-range attempts on the campaign, after years rife with shooting slumps and injury woes that derailed his NBA career and left him labeled a bust.

His growth extends far beyond the arc. At 28, entering his prime, Exum is more physical with his drives, packing greater oomph into every pound of the ball, using all of that 6-foot-5 frame and 6-foot-9 wingspan that helped make him a top-five pick out of Australia one decade ago. He’s provided Dallas with another playmaker the Mavericks need behind their pair of All-Star creators in Luka Dončić and Kyrie Irving. He’s rebalancing the three-guard backcourt that yielded Dallas a trip to the Western Conference finals in 2022 after not factoring into the league at all.

“It’s been a whirlwind, just what I’ve went through and everything I’ve done,” Exum told Yahoo Sports.

Dallas head coach Jason Kidd has found Exum’s resurgence reminiscent of Shaun Livingston, the lanky ball-handler who joined Kidd’s 2013-14 outfit in Brooklyn, and parlayed that strong campaign into a three-year deal with the champion Golden State Warriors. Livingston was the fourth pick out of high school in 2004, a promising 19-year-old rookie, before a devastating knee and leg injury curbed his third season.

“[Exum] had setbacks…

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Publish date : 2024-03-21 13:52:03

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