Cavs: 3 takeaways from reported trade with Utah Jazz

Takeaway #3: A rotational defensive piece..maybe?

Now we’ll touch on the Exum piece to the deal a bit for the Cleveland Cavaliers.

I’ll start here in noting that Exum has been injured quite often in his career to this point, and Exum has appeared in just 11 games and only played 7.5 minutes per game in 2019-20 with the Jazz.

Exum missed the entire 2015-16 due to a reported ACL tear, and as Bleacher Report’s Kyle Newport noted, Exum played in just 14 games in 2017-18 due to shoulder surgery. Newport also touched on how Exum tore his patellar tendon in March of last year, too, and clearly, injuries are a huge concern with him and his offensive impact is pretty minimal.

He’s played just 14 and 42 games the last two years, according to Basketball Reference.

A big plus here, though, as mentioned by ESPN’s Bobby Marks, is that Cleveland is reportedly creating a $3.83 million trade exception, and is now “$5.1 million below the luxury tax.”

In terms of on-floor positives, Exum has shown when he’s healthy, that he can be a quality defender against opposing 1’s and 2’s, and at 6-foot-5 with a 6-foot-9 wingspan, that could help out Beilein and the coaching staff in some rotational minutes. Exum has pretty solid feel off the ball in getting through screens, too, which is a plus.

Exum is not really a scorer, as shown by him having just 5.7 points per game in his career and only 2.2 points per game in 2019-20, and as noted by Basketball Reference, Exum’s shot just 30.5% from three-point range and has a lifetime 46.8% effective field goal shooting rate.

In some rotation minutes, Exum could potentially run the offense some for Beilein, and he’s a decent ball-mover that is going to generally make the right play in that regard.

Overall, though, Exum, who has a cap hit of $9.6 million this season (per Spotrac), could be very injury-prone with the Cavs, and I really am not sure how much he’ll be able to contribute for Cleveland’s bench.