Is it too early to write Dante Exum off? This would be his fifth season in the league, except he missed the entirety of what would have been his second season and a large chunk of his third season due to injury. Thanks to those injuries, we’ll never know what kind of player he would have become, other than it would probably be better than the version that’s in front of us today. As a rule, I don’t personally become hyped for high draft picks until they show something in the NBA, but a lot of people had crowned Exum as the next Kobe before he even stepped onto an NBA floor, and now his ceiling looks like, I don’t know, prime Charlie Bell.
There’s still time for Exum to turn it around and prove me wrong. But he’s actually regressed this season after playing well at the end of last season (although the stats are skewed by a 21-point game standing alone amongst mostly single-digit scoring efforts), which is not what you want to see from a player who’s finally healthy and should be on an upward trajectory. It’s insensitive to use the word “bust” with players whose careers were derailed by injuries, but I feel like there’s not a better word to describe his NBA career up to this point. Maybe I need to invent a new word. How about “injust”? Short for “injury bust”.
Yep. That sounds good. Dante Exum officially joins fellow Aussie Andrew Bogut as an injust.