If you haven’t read my other posts about Dante Exum lets me fill you in.
Exum is a Australian PG. Tall for the guard spot but gets the job done, great cutter and passer. He’s similar to Russell Westbrook, very athletic and he’s still in high school. Just from that he sounds promising.
But NBA GM’s are getting a little on edge with the Aussie youngster. He’s recently said that he is a fan of Lakers star Kobe Bryant, so much in fact that he hired the same agent that manages Kobe, Rob Pelinka. And to make it just that little more obvious he said that he would like to play for the Lakers.
And now according to SportingNews he wants to meet with the Lakers star.
Is it a coincidence that he signed with Kobe’s agent and wants to meet with Kobe?
GM’s are worried that Dante might go down the route of threatening either get drafted by the Lakers (who will most likely have a top 10 pick anyway) or he will go play overseas.
Now an ignorant GM might not care, he’s an overseas player anyway if he goes to Europe then fine. But a smart GM who actually looks at the player would want this kid in the league and so would I. If you surf for footage of him you will be very pleased with what you see, he’s legit. And the NBA are known for globalisation.
SportingNews also talks about the recent times things similar to this haven’t played out for the foreign player in question…
When Ricky Rubio attempted to land himself with the Thunder, Clippers or Kings in ’09, all three teams passed on him and he wound up going to Minnesota.
In 2007, when Yi Jianlian was trying to select his market, he only worked out in front of the Hawks, Celtics, Bulls, Lakers, Clippers, Kings, Warriors and Sixers. Three teams with Top 7 picks—Milwaukee, Memphis and Minnesota—were not invited to watch him. The Bucks drafted Yi anyway.
In them cases they didn’t work but I think this is different. We don’t have as much film on him as we do for a Julius Randle or Andrew Wiggins, but from what I’ve seen, this kid is legit and will be drafted top 10, in my opinion he’s top 5.
We’ll just have to see how this one plays out…
