How Mavericks’ Dante Exum, a former lottery pick, found his game overseas and

CHICAGO –– Dante Exum has had an unconventional NBA journey for someone who was drafted No. 5 overall in the 2014 draft. If you took thumbtacks and string to trace his journey on a map, it would look like the most random grouping of cities and countries for a vacation or perhaps the worst couple of days of travel. It’s definitely not the journey befitting of a guy who was one of the most intriguing prospects in his draft class.

“I think everyone, once you come in, you have these high hopes,” Exum told CBS Sports. “I played 82 [games] my first season, and then didn’t play a single game in the second season. So it’s definitely hard pulling back expectations.”

Exum’s career sputtered out of the gates due to injuries, which started with a torn ACL that forced him to miss the entirety of his sophomore season. He showed improvement in his third year, but that progress was swiftly undercut by a lost fourth year, where he needed shoulder surgery after TJ Warren landed on him in a preseason game. Injuries followed him at his next two stops with the Cleveland Cavaliers and Houston Rockets, the latter of which he never played for in a regular season game as he was waived by Houston prior to the start of the 2021-22 season.

“Everyone kind of wants everything right away coming back from injury,” Exum said. “The ACL was the hardest thing, and learning that it wasn’t gonna happen Game 1, might not even happen in a year. But it’s just an adjustment that you have to keep making to get better, and unfortunately for me, every time I found a rhythm, I’d go back down. But it was just about keeping headstrong, and I felt like I belonged here. And obviously, the injuries and just staying healthy was kind of a problem for a lot of teams when free agency came.”

After being waived by the Rockets in 2021, Exum found himself without a team, and despite feeling like he belonged in the NBA, the Australian guard found himself playing overseas for Liga ACB powerhouse FC Barcelona.

“When I first went over to Barcelona, everything was always about getting back to the NBA,” Exum said. “If I played well it was like I deserve to be back, and when I played bad it was like, oh I’m not going back.”

For better or worse, Exum put pressure on himself to show the NBA that he was ready to compete at that level again. And while there was some interest from NBA teams following that year in Spain where he averaged 7.7 points, 3.1 rebounds and shot 49.4% from the field, they were all non-guaranteed contracts. If Exum was going to come back to the NBA, he wanted there to be some financial security.  So he went to Serbia to play for Partizan in the ABA League the following year, where he not only put the thought of making it back to the NBA on the back burner but also averaged the best numbers of his professional career.

Exum put up 12.4 points, three assists and 2.5 rebounds on 53.4% from…