Putting Dante Exum into perspective

tleikheen · Post #121 » by **tleikheen** » Fri Dec 28, 2018 3:00 pm

In the last 5 games Exum has 18 assists / 3 turnovers

tleikheen · Post #122 » by **tleikheen** » Sun Dec 30, 2018 3:28 am

Well Dante hasn't passed the David Locke test yet because he did it against NY...says he needs to see if he can do it again. Poor excuse because that means Gobert's super dominating 1st half against NY shouldn't count either because it's NY

_Joker · Post #123 » by **_Joker** » Sun Dec 30, 2018 7:31 am

Love seeing him play well, hopefully he can keep it up. Even though I'm a Nuggets fan I'm actually wearing an Exum jersey as I post this.

ConstableChaos · Post #124 » by **ConstableChaos** » Tue Jan 1, 2019 7:42 am

I hate the Nkilitina comparison for Exum, The only thing they have in similar height/weight/arm length. Ex is by far the better athlete, while Franks basketball skills' (handle/jumper) are superior and but both are nasty defenders.

I reckon the closer comp is Giannis, or if Ex was 7ft his game would be very akin to Giannis. Super long and athletic guys who can get to the rim at will with shaky outside games, and look to have the potential to be in All defensive team discussions?

Crunch 99 · Post #125 » by **Crunch 99** » Fri Jan 4, 2019 5:56 pm

I am not ready to hand over the starting keys to Exum yet, but this young man has earned more minutes. I think he should be getting at least 20 minutes every single game now. Last game he got 18.

KqWIN · Post #126 » by **KqWIN** » Fri Jan 4, 2019 9:05 pm

Crunch 99 wrote:I am not ready to hand over the starting keys to Exum yet, but this young man has earned more minutes. I think he should be getting at least 20 minutes every game now. Last game he got 18.

He drives me crazy because if he could just make layups, he might be the most effective guard on the team. Although, Rubio and Mitchell would both be significantly better if they could do some basic things better as well. Those three are so frustrating, but they are the only shot creators we have :-?

babyjax13 · Post #127 » by **babyjax13** » Sat Jan 5, 2019 2:46 am

babyjax13 wrote:
babyjax13 wrote:I've been thinking a lot about Dante Exum - who he is as a player, and where he is in his career. Especially, what kind of progression can we expect from him?

Age (compared to seniors in 2018 NBA draft)
DeVonte' Grahm: 23 years, 241 days
Dante Exum: 23 years, 100 days
Jevon Carter: 23 years, 37 days
Grayson Allen: 23 years, 13 days
Chandler Hutchison: 22 years, 178 days
Svi Mykhailiuk: 21 years, 133 days

Dante is still around the same age as several rookies, and he's had 5 years of learning from NBA coaches. Generally it's hoped that seniors will be productive NBA players, so were Dante drafted this year the expectation would be that he can contribute usefully to a rotation and would still have some upside left.

Progression
It's a bit hard to track progression. I've normalized his first several years to 20 minutes per game.
PER 20 is used because he's been either slightly below or slightly above 20mpg each year and it's pretty reasonable to expect that the statistics would scale. Obviously there are sample size issues with Dante's injury history.

Rookie year: 35/31/65 shooting, 4.8p 1.4r 2.2a .45s .18b 1.26to 1.62f ... .4 FTA
Year 2: 43/30/80 shooting, 6.7p 2.15r 1.82a .322s .22b 1.29t0 2.37f ... 1.1 FTA
Year 3: 48/28/81 shooting, 9.64p 2.26r 3.69a .714s .238b 1.67to 1.67f ... 2.2 FTA

Everything looks pretty promising here. Reasonable progression every year. Scoring efficiency has improved, scoring more points, assist to turnover ratio took a big jump last season. Points/20 have increased by 1.9 each season, rebounds/minute remain about static, steals have fluctuated, blocks have improved marginally, and FTA have doubled each season.

This is completely unscientific, but if we expect a similar trend of improvement to continue, we should see something around

Bad projection
48/30/80 shooting, 11.7p 2.3r 3a .7s .23b 1.6to 1.6pf ... 4 FTA

For reference, here is what he looks like two games in:
57/50/73 shooting, 11.8p 2.72r 1.8a 0s 0b .9to .9pf ... 5 FTA

Some things are going to normalize, and his role has changed so I don't expect a large increase in assists like last season (I expect a small regression from last year), but in this tiny sample size and from the eye test the expected progression seems pretty achievable.

Not sure what this does for people, but as long as he progresses reasonably Dante is definetely worth his contract, and there is always the possibility of a large jump at some point (he still has potential). But I'm not banking on him becoming a star, instead I see a fairly elite perimeter defender who isn't a negative on offense. That's a valuable thing - and puts him as pretty solidly one of the 10 best players in the 2014 class (but not top 5).

Update, Dante in December, again translated to per20.

Raw stats: 53/30/79 shooting, 14.2 mpg, 7.1p 1.1r 2.6a .5s 0b 1.1TO ... 2 FTA
per20: 53/30/79, 10ppg 1.5rpg 3.7apg .7s 0b 1.5TO ... 2.8FTA

November was a rough month, but October and December have looked promising, and I think his stats will normalize more-or-less to something similar to the bad projection above, although with less freethrow attempts and more assists.

Conveniently for this analysis, Dante over his last 5 has averaged 20 minutes per game:
50/50/100 shooting, 13p 2.4r 5.6a .2b 1TO ... 1.6 FTA

He's gobbled up almost all of Royce O'neale's minutes, as well. I like Royce, but Dante is the better player.

KqWIN · Post #128 » by **KqWIN** » Sat Jan 5, 2019 2:54 am

babyjax13 wrote:
babyjax13 wrote:Conveniently for this analysis, Dante over his last 5 has averaged 20 minutes per game:
50/50/100 shooting, 13p 2.4r 5.6a .2b 1TO ... 1.6 FTA

He's gobbled up almost all of Royce O'neale's minutes, as well. I like Royce, but Dante is the better player.

Read on Twitter

And when he does have a bad game, it's been due to missing layups :lol:

I definitely agree that Exum should take O'Neale's minutes. Right now it feels like we're giving O'Neale token minutes. It'd be more beneficial to play Exum an extra 8 minutes or even shift the rotation and give those minutes to Neto for an offensive boost.

babyjax13 · Post #129 » by **babyjax13** » Sat Jan 5, 2019 3:01 am

KqWIN wrote:
babyjax13 wrote:
babyjax13 wrote:Conveniently for this analysis, Dante over his last 5 has averaged 20 minutes per game:
50/50/100 shooting, 13p 2.4r 5.6a .2b 1TO ... 1.6 FTA

He's gobbled up almost all of Royce O'neale's minutes, as well. I like Royce, but Dante is the better player.

Read on Twitter

And when he does have a bad game, it's been due to missing layups

I definitely agree that Exum should take O'Neale's minutes. Right now it feels like we're giving O'Neale token minutes. It'd be more beneficial to play Exum an extra 8 minutes or even shift the rotation and give those minutes to Neto for an offensive boost.

He shoots 56% from 0-3 feet. Wish I could find a percentile stat, but from what I've seen that's about average for point guards. I really wonder what it is if you exclude November. But I do agree, he's a bit scrawny and loses the ball inside. Still 23, though

BudTugly · Post #130 » by **BudTugly** » Sat Jan 5, 2019 5:30 am

Exum has been so much better. Tonight he had what used to be a trademark turnover on a drive and I was surprised it happened.

Good for him, and good for the Jazz.

cojayar · Post #131 » by **cojayar** » Sat Jan 5, 2019 8:28 am

Peeforming very well against the scrubs of teams like the Cavs, where defense does not count. Decision pending on how does he perform against good players. I have many doubts.

Daddy 801 · Post #132 » by **Daddy 801** » Sat Jan 5, 2019 9:37 am

I’m at least happy to see him improving enough there is a debate he might be good against good teams. With all the crap he has gone through and his relative subpar play the past few seasons I’ll take the progress.

Tom349 · Post #133 » by **Tom349** » Sat Jan 5, 2019 10:02 am

BudTugly wrote:Exum has been so much better. Tonight he had what used to be a trademark turnover on a drive and I was surprised it happened.

Good for him, and good for the Jazz.

Is this the turnover that came down low when he was trapped baseline? If so that same play was when he got cut on the eye which may or may not have contributed to the turnover..

lars_rosenberg · Post #134 » by **lars_rosenberg** » Sun Jan 6, 2019 1:19 pm

Any news on the injury? I hope he didn't return just for precaution.

TNJazz · Post #135 » by **TNJazz** » Sun Jan 6, 2019 4:14 pm

Both he and Sefalosha are being re-evaluated today (Sunday), lets hope it just minor and keeping them both out was just precautionary. Seff really contributed some valuable minutes recently and Dante has been on a terrific upswing. I didn't see Serf's injury, but when Dante went down, he stayed down and had look like he knew it wasn't good. If it is badly sprained, this will be the first "significant" injury we have had this year. I wish his a speedy recovery however significant it is. Dante has been terrific and beginning to show why they drafted and extended him.

KDBG · Post #136 » by **KDBG** » Sun Jan 6, 2019 4:27 pm

TNJazz wrote:Both he and Sefalosha are being re-evaluated today (Sunday), lets hope it just minor and keeping them both out was just precautionary. Seff really contributed some valuable minutes recently and Dante has been on a terrific upswing. I didn't see Serf's injury, but when Dante went down, he stayed down and had look like he knew it wasn't good. If it is badly sprained, this will be the first "significant" injury we have had this year. I wish his a speedy recovery however significant it is. Dante has been terrific and beginning to show why they drafted and extended him.

He looked more pissed to me, like "are you kidding me, another injury?" He got up quick, and walked off on his own power. I don't think it'll be major.

stitches · Post #137 » by **stitches** » Mon Jan 7, 2019 6:03 pm

Read on Twitter

BarneyGumble · Post #138 » by **BarneyGumble** » Mon Jan 7, 2019 6:54 pm

Exum's ankle sprain looked bad. It rolled quite a bit....in my experience those never fully heal for several weeks at best. I'm sure he can get out and get playing again pretty soon....but he won't have the explosiveness or the cutting on that bum ankle. I say keep him out until he's 100%......

zero24gravity · Post #139 » by **zero24gravity** » Mon Jan 7, 2019 8:21 pm

BarneyGumble wrote:Exum's ankle sprain looked bad. It rolled quite a bit....in my experience those never fully heal for several weeks at best. I'm sure he can get out and get playing again pretty soon....but he won't have the explosiveness or the cutting on that bum ankle. I say keep him out until he's 100%......

I've rolled mine horribly bad & been fine in a few days, then on another occasion rolled it just a bit, thought I'd be fine, then had it bother me for weeks.

But I do agree, that while I want him back ASAP, if he's not at 100% he loses his "special-ness" without the explosion, so it would pointless to rush him.

TNJazz · Post #140 » by **TNJazz** » Mon Jan 7, 2019 10:14 pm

Any "Official" news on his ankle? How severe was the roll? I "rolled" mine last summer during a Warrior Dash and it took months to get back to where I could trust it again. I am not in the shape these pros are, nor am I anywhere near as young

but what was thought to be minor roll/sprain ended up taking way too long to heal, primarily bc I thought it would heal faster than it did and got back on the horse too soon. Let him get back to 100% so he can regain the explosiveness and confidence he had recently. Will give Neto some quality time as the primary backup which could pay off big time come Playoffs, which I still think will make as a 4-5 seed.