Utah Jazz Backup Point Guard Dante Exum Out After Knee Surgery

It has been a tough road for Utah Jazz point guard Dante Exum since he was a lottery pick in the draft, and now the road is going to be even tougher after he had knee surgery on Wednesday, ending his season for the playoff bound Jazz.

The reserve guard underwent surgery in Los Angeles, having his partially torn patellar tendon in his right knee repaired. If you know how to read basketball betting lines, you’ll know that not having Exum on the Jazz’s bench is going to hurt them for the postseason.

The team announced that Exum will soon begin rehabilitation, but for now the team is saying that he will be sidelined indefinitely, and his season is over as there’s no chance of him being able to return in time to be of any sort of impact this postseason.

Right now Utah is sitting in the fifth spot in the Western Conference in terms of the playoff, as they are 15 games over .500 at 45-30, and they trail the fourth-seeded Houston Rockets by a pair of games, and basically are fighting with Houston for a chance to be the home team in the first-round, with a shot to play up to four home games if necessary instead of having to start with games one and two on the road and only playing three.

This season, Exum has played in 42 games for the Jazz as the teams’ backup point guard, and in those 42 affairs he has put in 6.9 points a game, with 2.6 assists and 1.6 rebounds in 15.8 minutes per game. Not great numbers, but for a backup point guard not bad either.

Exum was the fifth pick in the 2014 NBA Draft, but has been hit hard by injuries over his career and has missed plenty of time that has hurt his career.

He missed all of the 2015-16 season with a bad knee injury that kept him on the sidelines watching when he could have made an impact as a young player.

A preseason shoulder injury forced him to miss basically the entire season (he did managed to suit up for 14 games) in the 2017-18 season. It seems like the shoulder has healed, but at the same time now this latest injury really puts in doubt how well he’s going to able to cut and make it once he’s cleared to play.

The 23-year-old received a three-year extension this offseason worth a reported $33 million, money that the Jazz might want to have back.

The post Utah Jazz Backup Point Guard Dante Exum Out After Knee Surgery appeared first on Slam Dunk Central.

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