The latest significant rumble regarding this year’s draft happened this morning, when news broke that Australian point guard Dante Exum will enter the draft this June. He can’t officially declare for the draft until April, but even before today’s report, it seemed quite a long shot that he would choose to attend college instead. There’s plenty more on Exum, as we pass along in our latest look at the draft:
- Jonathan Givony of DraftExpress believes that Rob Pelinka, whom Exum has chosen as his agent, will shroud the point guard come draft time, limiting his exposure in workouts as he did with Dion Waiters in 2012 (Twitter link).
- A number of GMs have told Chad Ford of ESPN.com Insider that they would be comfortable taking Exum No. 1, even though reliable data on his performance is hard to come by. That echoes the comments of an NBA executive who tells Sean Deveney of The Sporting News that Exum will ultimately be “in the mix” to go first overall.
- Still, a Western Conference GM tells Chris Mannix of SI.com that Jabari Parker, Joel Embiid and Andrew Wiggins are “a cut above everyone else” likely to be in the draft this summer. Parker, Embiid and Wiggins make up the top three, in that order, in Mannix’s rankings. Exum is fourth.