NBA Trade Grades: Utah Jazz pick up Jordan Clarkson
By Phil Watson
Cleveland Cavaliers
Things have not gone according to plan for Australian guard Dante Exum, who has been limited by injuries — including two major knee surgeries — since playing all 82 games for the Utah Jazz as a rookie in 2014-15.
In August 2015, Exum tore his left ACL while playing with the Australian national team and then partially tore the patellar tendon in his right knee in March, ending his season after just 42 games.
After missing the entire 2015-16 season recovering from the ACL tear, Exum played 66 games in 2016-17. But since then, he has played in just 67 games over two-plus seasons, missing 68 games in 2017-18 after shoulder surgery and playing in only 42 last season.
This season, Exum missed 12 games to start the season recovering from surgery to repair the patellar tendon and only made 11 appearances prior to Monday night’s trade. He averaged 2.2 points and 1.1 rebounds in 7.5 minutes per game, shooting 43.5 percent overall and 2-for-6 from 3-point range.
Utah moved Exum to the wing this season after he played his first four seasons as a point guard. Cleveland already has two young point guards — their last two drafts netted Collin Sexton and Darius Garland in the first round — and neither is as much a polished floor general as they are undersized score-first guys.
But Exum hasn’t been a great facilitator either, averaging just 4.2 assists per 36 minutes in his 215 career appearances.
Selected fifth overall in the 2014 NBA Draft, Exum is in the second year of a three-year, $33 million contract he signed in July 2018, with a guaranteed value of $27.3 million. The rest of the deal is linked to incentives.
In addition to the 24-year-old former lottery pick, the Cavaliers will get a 2022 second-round pick originally belonging to the San Antonio Spurs and the Golden State Warriors’ 2023 second-rounder.
But they also create a trade exception worth $3.83 million — the difference between the salaries of Exum and Clarkson — and will now be $5.6 million below the luxury tax apron. The deal did, however, cost them an expiring contract and the Cavs are now projected to have a maximum of $26.46 million in cap space next summer, per Jeff Siegel of Early Bird Rights.
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It’s not a terrible deal for the Cavaliers, who get younger and pick up two more future draft assets. Per RealGM, Cleveland now has a 2022 first-round pick from the Bucks, three second-rounders in 2022 (Houston, Washington and San Antonio) and Golden State’s 2023 second-round selection.
But their first-round pick next June is still in play as a top-10 protected pick that could convey to New Orleans. If it doesn’t convey in 2020, the Cavs will surrender their second-round picks in 2021 and 2022 to the Pelicans. Cleveland’s 2024 second-round pick is subject to being swapped by Utah as part of a February 2018 trade involving the Cavs, Jazz and Kings.
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But Cleveland has more to do if it wants to continue its rebuild around its young guard tandem of Sexton and Garland.