Things never seem to be easy for Dante Exum. The Dallas Mavericks guard has been forced to stop at the start of the preseason after suffering an injury to his right wrist.
As of the moment, no further details are known – only, as Shams Charania reports, that it is serious enough to possibly warrant a trip to the operating table. It’s more bad news for a player whose career has been totally conditioned and marred by physical problems.
Exum with a point to prove with the Mavs
Exum returned to the NBA last summer on a two-year contract worth just over $6 million. He wanted to prove to the Mavs that he deserves a place there, on the US side of the Atlantic where he had earned a place with his excellent performances (and signs of good health) at Barcelona and, above all, with Partizan.
In his first season back, he made it clear that he can be a useful guard who specializes in coming off the bench: physical, defensive with an ability that he didn’t have before to hit open three-pointers. He played 55 games, averaged 7.8 points and 2.9 assists in 20 minutes on the court and was part of the rotation of those Mavs who had an excellent season that ended in the NBA Finals. This wrist injury is, however, his third mishap since January (and the most worrying). The previous ones were relatively minor – bursitis in his knee and a fasciitis problem in his foot.
In the absence of tests that clarify the definitive extent of the injury, Exum could be facing another long-term absence. His first stage in the NBA (2014-21) was a via crucis because of constant injuries, which stopped his development just when he began to feel comfortable with his game. He was the number 5 pick in the 2014 draft, going straight from high school in Canberra to the Utah Jazz.
In his first season, he played all 82 games, but he missed his entire second season (2015-16) due to a serious knee ligament injury while playing for Australia in the summer of 2015. In 2016-17, he was able to play 66 games, but between December and January he was again absent for a long time, which ended after the season with shoulder surgery that prevented him from playing again until March 2018. Between 2016 and 2021, he only played 163 games, an average of less than 33 per season, and ended up being traded (Cavaliers, Rockets) and eventually cut.
Fortunes change for the better in Europe
In Europe, Exum had to remind those who wanted to watch him from the US that he can be a useful player (he was a star in the Euroleague, productive in the NBA) and, above all, that he can be on the court, staying healthy.
He shined at Barça, in a fleeting stint, and played an exceptional season in Belgrade, under the orders of Obradovic and in that Partizan that, from less to more, came close to the Final Four and ended up eliminated in an incredible way in the series against Real Madrid marked, and stained, by the fight in the second game and, above all, Yabusele’s wrestling hold on Exum himself, who played diminished for the rest of the series. He did, however, earn the call from the Mavericks with whom he will not be able to be, for now, in his second and last year of contract.
The Texans have lost Josh Green and added Quentin Grimes and Spencer Dinwiddie to the backcourt; and they’re once again hopeful that Jaden Hardy will finally show continuity beyond his flashes of talent.
So Exum will have to fight to earn a place, when he returns, in that outside rotation that will watch the backs of the main trio, Luka Doncic (who also started the preseason injured, in his case a minor problem), Kyrie Irving and the big newcomer, Klay Thompson.
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