Cavs: Dante Exum seems destined for Brandon Knight treatment

Dante Exum doesn’t seem likely to play a lot for the Cleveland Cavaliers.

With next season in mind, I wouldn’t expect Dante Exum to play a whole lot for the Cleveland Cavaliers. In Exum’s appearances with Cleveland last season, he did about what I would’ve thought he would.

Exum is an alright reserve guard, and since arriving via trade from the Utah Jazz in December, he was on-par with his career averages.

In 16.8 minutes per outing, Exum averaged 5.6 points, to go with 2.3 rebounds. For comparison, that was close to his career clip, most of which was with Utah. That’s been 5.7 points and 1.8 rebounds in 18.5 minutes per game.

So again, that was, by and large, on-brand for Exum in his minutes-share with the Cavaliers. And he got much more burn with Cleveland than he’d been getting with the Jazz last season before that, more so in contrast to prior years.

Exum, most notably in his time with the Cavs, in this sense, has been solid defensively on the perimeter, often against 1’s and 2’s. He is usually competent on-ball, and is a sound rotator that gets through off-ball traffic to contest shooters/deter drivers well, too.

Swinging back to the offensive end a bit, Exum is a capable driver in secondary transition when he’s getting downhill, but in settled offense, doesn’t prove much in that way. On driving layups last season, he had a shooting clip of only 36.0 percent, per NBA.com’s shooting data.

His cutting feel in settled offense aids him in getting nice looks at times, though, and Exum is a player that’s a willing passer that can help initiate offense some.

That said, it’s difficult to foresee Exum getting consistent stretches of minutes at this point for next season. One would think that Darius Garland, Collin Sexton and Kevin Porter Jr. will be getting most of the backcourt minutes.

And KPJ, in instances without Garland on the floor, and some with Dylan Windler, who is close to fully healthy, at the 2 next season, should seemingly get burn at times at the 1. From there, factoring in Windler again, Cedi Osman still and with how Cleveland could very well draft a wing, Exum occasionally getting burn at the 3 wouldn’t seem too likely, either, as was the case some in 2019-20.

The other thing that’d make it seem tough for Exum to get much burn in meaningful minutes is the painfully obvious. Exum has been injury-prone in his career, and with the Cavs, he was set to it’d appear miss a bunch of more time due to a high ankle sprain.

He missed eight games leading into the season’s novel coronavirus-induced hiatus and then what was ultimately the end of the season for the Cavs, for instance, and he had knee and shoulder issues previously with Utah.

So while I’m of course not suggesting Dante will get hurt, and I absolutely hope he doesn’t next season with the Cavs, I can’t say that happening would be at all shocking.

Anyhow, in regards to Exum’s outlook next season for the Wine and Gold, he’d appear to be ripe for a similar fate down the road as a prior Cavs reserve.

Exum seems destined for the Brandon Knight treatment by the Cavaliers.

Exum seems destined for Brandon Knight treatment by Cleveland. Knight played sparingly last season for Cleveland, and was seemingly more so a mentor-type player for much of the first half of last season for Garland/Sexton.

That didn’t lead to him being regularly in the rotation, as Knight was held out of a bunch of contests via DNP’s and was only active in 16 games in total in 2019-20 with Cleveland.

That clearly wasn’t conducive to Knight being in-rhythm when he was given time, either, which was understandable. Knight had 4.9 points in 15.1 minutes per outing on only 32.6 percent shooting, to go with 1.9 assists.

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Knight then also missed a nine-game span in a stretch pretty close to the 2020 trade deadline due to a knee injury, too.

Overall, Knight didn’t have nearly the impact off the bench that he had after he was acquired near the 2019 trade deadline from the Houston Rockets with Cleveland, when he had 8.5 points and 2.3 assists in 22.9 minutes per game. Garland, to a large degree, and still Matthew Dellavedova to some extent played into that, along with Sexton, anyhow.

Eventually, Knight would be traded near the 2020 deadline to the Detroit Pistons as a piece involved in the Andre Drummond deal, mainly for salary-matching and with Knight being on an expiring deal.

Knight would then play well with the Pistons leading into the hiatus, who originally drafted him, with a bigger opportunity to the tune of 11.6 points and 4.2 assists per game, but will they bring him back? I wouldn’t bet on it.

Nonetheless, Exum again seems destined for the Knight treatment next season from the Cleveland Cavaliers.

Even more so if the to-be unrestricted Dellavedova is back, which could potentially be the case, Dante simply seems hard-pressed for consistent minutes. That’s with Windler in the fold, still the youngsters and with Porter seeming extremely likely to have a bigger role both as a key bench scorer and playmaker.

And if Exum misses a chunk of games at some point due to injury, of which would seem to be a high possibility, much like Knight to some extent in his career had due to a prior knee injury, I wouldn’t think that’d aid Exum’s case from there if available.

Furthermore, with Exum set to be an unrestricted free agent after next season, him eventually being an expiring trade piece in a package perhaps near the 2021 deadline seems pretty likely.

Maybe I’ll end up missing this off the upright and Exum proves to be a key bench contributor and makes a case to stick around more into the near future as a decent reserve guard and solid defensive piece.

But the B. Knight treatment from the Cavs seems much more realistic with him due to be expiring, even with Exum still only being 25.