Post#289 » by Bensational » Sat May 24, 2014 10:10 pm
Watching the videos again, I've got to say that Exum's defense is pretty terrible. Australia switch up between a man and a zone, but it's like Exum always plays zone no matter what. He always sagged off his man. When he picked up the point, on every other play he'd get picked off by a screen, but instead of going for a switch or going under the screen, he'd try to go over the screen but he'd give up straight away and let his man go wherever he wanted. He's got a lot to learn on that front, and it's only going to be harder for him in the NBA with faster guards and harder picks set by bigs.
Offensively, he's good. He runs plays like a proper point, content to make the pass for the team play when needed. He moves well off the ball (a few plays where he stood on the weakside and just watched, but for the most part he's often moving well within the offense, creating space and looking to get open).
His handles are amazing. At any given moment, you don't know where he's going to go. Lots of great hesitation moves, stutter steps and crossovers, and he can change direction and turn the corner on a screen at any speed. In transition, teams foul him the moment he gets the ball, because they know if they don't, it's a free bucket. At full speed he can change direction and shift gears at the drop of a hat. Since we can't compare his abilities via his level of talent, I'm going to sit down at some point and measure out how quickly he makes these moves, and try to find a comparison with Smart (I choose him because he's the other top perimeter prospect in the draft) so we've got a reference for the speed at which Exum is playing.
His shot selection isn't ok, but not great. Most of his poor shots came in the dwindling seconds of the shot clock, where he'd shake his defender and pull up for a long two at the top of the key. Otherwise, his 3's were all in the flow of the game (either wide open, or getting space off a screen). When driving or getting into the paint, he's very clever - always looking for space, or contact. He's got great awareness of what's around him, and the handles to keep going and get him into better positioning.
His passes are nice, too. He makes beautiful short passes in the paint, using his length to wrap around players to find an open man for an easy, close range basket. He had a lot of great passes that would've been assists, but his team mates didn't complete. I think he'll surprise people with how many assists he will end up racking up each game in the pros.
His basketball IQ is great. He's very aware of how a defense reacts, and he uses that to his advantage when he draws players in and finds an open man. Even when he's initiated a play from the perimeter and isn't directly involved, he'll move off the ball and get open, whilst communicating with his teammates as to who is around them.
The biggest knock on him that I found was his lack of effort/hustle not only on defense, but generally. There were several plays when his team pushed the ball up on a break, but were stopped and forced to reset, but Exum hadn't bothered to run up the court with them. Im not sure what that's about, but I didn't like it.
Most of all, I don't know how anyone can say he's a good defender at this point. I haven't seen one example of it.
