NEW ORLEANS – Dante Exum said it was “something I’ve done a thousand times.”
Except that this time, in training camp at a routine practice, when he went up for a dunk, it went haywire.
Exum, the Mavericks’ guard who hasn’t yet played this season because of the injury suffered on that dunk try that required right wrist surgery, spoke for the first time about what he went through when it happened and the arduous journey it’s been to get back to the basketball court.
Which could be soon, by the way. Exum is on the Mavericks’ five-game trip that started Wednesday in New Orleans and now heads north and east for games at Detroit, Cleveland, Philadelphia and Boston.
The hope is that he’ll play at some point in those four games.
“Hopefully,” he said as he sat in the visitors’ locker room before the Mavericks played New Orleans on Wednesday. “We’ll see.”
Remembering the play when the injury occurred, the affable Australian said he was surprised to hurt himself the way he did as opposed to trying to brace himself on a hard fall.
“I tried to dunk on somebody and when I dunked the ball, I guess my wrist just hit the rim at the wrong angle,” he said. “It was on the rim. I didn’t fall on it or anything. Obviously, a bit frustrating. It’s something I’ve done a thousand times. But I think that’s just how it goes sometimes.”
Since that day, it’s been a rocky course to recovery. Exum had surgery soon after the incident and spent what seemed like an eternity in a brace.
“The biggest one is going into the brace and keeping it stabilized, just letting it heal,” the 6-5 Exum said. “But once you’re coming out of that, it’s trying to get that range of motion back.
“I think it would have been a lot easier if it was my left hand. But it being my shooting hand and having to get the touch and the shooting form back, obviously, made it a little bit tougher.”
Exum is in his second season with the Mavericks after playing two years in Europe and six seasons before that with Cleveland and Utah.
He averaged 7.8 points, 2.9 assists and 2.7 rebounds in 55 games for the Mavericks last season. He also was deadly from long range, hitting 49 percent from beyond the three-point arc.
Now that he’s on the lip of the cup to return to action, Exum said: “I’m feeling good. It’s been a long journey just to be back and it being the right wrist, it’s obviously a shot thing. But I’ve been working hard and trying to get to the point of feeling really good and (I’m) approaching that very closely.”
And he can look back on the recovery and smile about at least one thing that he did. While rehabbing, he could not use his right hand on the court. That forced him to concentrate on working on his left-handed skills.
“I said it was going to go in stage in rehab,” Exum said. “It would be all focused on the left, then it would be all focused on the right and then we’ll bring it all together. But it’s been a good process. It opens up everything.
“We were playing one-on-one, two-on-two with just my straight left hand. So it was just a different way of thinking how to beat my defender with them knowing I can only go left.”
Coach Jason Kidd said that Exum has checked a lot of the boxes that he needs to in order to get back into game action.
“He’s trending in the right way,” Kidd said. “The wrist feels really, really good. He looks good. We’ll see how he does today and tomorrow and hopefully that continues and hopefully we get to see him maybe sometime on this trip – maybe.”
The only residue from the injury – other than having to knock off a lot of rust – is the two-inch-long scar on the top side of his wrist. It was a small scaphoid bone, which helps the wrist move and stay stable, that broke.
But it’s been a difficult stretch mentally for Exum, as well. Watching the Mavericks go through so many injuries – his was just the start of a nightmarish run of bad health – has been tough.
“Obviously, it was hard for me to see everyone out there playing,” he said. “And then with the season going on and seeing guys go down and having less and less bodies on particular nights, wishing I could just be out there to help for five or 10 minutes. It’s been tough.
“But being around the guys and everyone stayed connected. I can’t wait to get back on the court.”
X: @ESefko
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