Dante Exum highlighting ‘closeness’ of Cavs should allow him to fit right in soon

Cleveland Cavaliers guard Dante Exum highlighted the “closeness” of his new squad when asked about what stuck out to him, and that tight-knit group should allow him to fit right in soon.

The Cleveland Cavaliers no longer have bench scoring dynamo Jordan Clarkson, who was having another rock solid season getting buckets off the pine in 2019-20 with 14.6 points per game, which was third on Cleveland in scoring, as noted by NBA.com.

The Cavaliers reportedly traded Clarkson to the Utah Jazz in exchange for then-Utah guard Dante Exum and two future second-round picks in 2022 (via the San Antonio Spurs) and in 2023 (via the Golden State Warriors), as reported by ESPN’s Adrian Wojnarowski.

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As I hit on, Exum’s reportedly had injury struggles throughout his career that have unfortunately limited him throughout, as evidenced by an ACL tear that caused him to miss the whole 2015-16 season, and a torn patellar tendon cut his season short last year. He was limited to just 14 and 42 games active in 2017-18 and 2018-19, respectively, according to Basketball Reference.

Anyway, though, the Cavs, given that Clarkson was one of many players on an expiring contract coming into this season, will seemingly likely be involved in future deals by the 2020 deadline.

Nonetheless, the players on the Cavaliers clearly loved Clarkson, with the way he competed so hard every time he was on the floor and in practice, as Collin Sexton emphasized and along with that, Kevin Love grew to be so close with Clarkson, as was detailed by Cleveland.com’s Chris Fedor.

Now, though, it was refreshing to hear that Exum highlighted how the Cavs have such a “closeness” about their squad, so it would seem that he should fit right in soon from a locker room standpoint.

I’ll be clear in saying that I really am not sure about how much Exum’s going to contribute in his time here in Cleveland.

This deal involving Clarkson was more so prioritizing the future picks, along with Cleveland, according to ESPN’s Bobby Marks, “creating a $3.83M trade exception” and going to “$5.1M below the luxury tax.”

Exum had tough circumstances in Utah with his injuries, and given that the Jazz are a team that could make noise in the postseason, his minutes-share wasn’t much this season.

Exum played just 7.5 minutes per game in 11 appearances with Utah in 2019-20, and had 2.2 points and 1.1 rebounds per game, as noted by Basketball Reference.

Exum is a player that has showed some playmaking ability in his career as a reserve, as shown by a career assist rate of 17.8%, courtesy of Basketball Reference, but the Cleveland Cavaliers will need his defensive ability on the perimeter more if he’s able to carve out rotational minutes for head coach John Beilein and company.

At 6-foot-5 with a 6-foot-9 wingspan and with good team defensive instincts, Exum hopefully should be able to give Cleveland some relief for the likes of Darius Garland, Collin Sexton and/or Cedi Osman at times while holding off penetration from opposing wings.

Exum, though he is injury-prone, is sound in a positional sense defensively in pick-and-roll coverage, uses high hands to contest and is a good decision-maker in transition.

Moreover, it’s good to hear that Exum, who recently wrote a thank you on his Instagram to the Jazz for sticking with him for a while since 2014 when they drafted him and helping him grow, highlighted the “closeness” of the Cavs’ seemingly from a locker room standpoint.

After all, as Fedor demonstrated, in this rebuild where the Cleveland Cavaliers will be primarily focused on stockpiling assets and developing young players, a 24-year-old reclamation project the likes of Exum could become a solid rotational piece if he’s played in a proper role.

Perhaps we’ll see some meaningful contributions from Exum on Friday on the road at the Boston Celtics, where the 9-21 Cavs will try to win their fourth in a row in a tough test versus the team with the NBA’s third-best record.

Furthermore, it’s a plus that the Cavaliers, even in this rebuild, are very close-knit, and it would seem that Exum should fit right in soon, which could help his chemistry grow with others on the floor, too.