Marc Stein and Jake Fischer<\/a> reported that the Mavs have “ramped up their efforts to create the needed roster space to complete the signing of” Exum, and are “focused on finding a new home via trade” for swingman Olivier-Maxence Prosper.<\/p>\nProsper was selected with the 24th overall pick in the 2023 draft by the Sacramento Kings before being traded to the Mavs on draft night. He was projected to be a strong wing defender who could make an impact with improved three-point shooting, but he struggled to find a consistent role in Dallas.<\/p>\n
Across 92 career games over the last two seasons, Prosper has averages of 3.5 points and 2.2 rebounds. His long-range shooting has left much to be desired, as he’s shot just 26.0 percent from beyond the arc.<\/p>\n
Prosper’s role would further be diminished with the Mavs during the upcoming season following the arrival of 2025 No. 1 pick Cooper Flagg, who also plays the small forward position. Flagg is expected to play a big role immediately as a rookie, and he will see some time as Dallas’ primary ball-handler while star point guard Kyrie Irving recovers from a torn ACL.<\/p>\n
Irving’s absence makes Exum’s return even more important, as the Mavs will need a reliable point guard to allow Flagg to grow other parts of his game while relieving him of the ball-handling duties. Exum has spent the last two years in Dallas and has proven to be a capable contributor off the bench, shooting 49.1 from three-point range in 2023-24 and 43.4 percent from beyond the arc last season.<\/p>\n
Moving Prosper likely won’t garner a big trade return for the Mavs, but retaining Exum appears to be the priority in any impending deal.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Dallas Mavericks reportedly are hoping to re-sign veteran guard Dante Exum, but they need to create some…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":101932,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[574],"tags":[64,63,726,85],"class_list":["post-101931","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-basketball","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-basketball","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/101931","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=101931"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/101931\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/101932"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=101931"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=101931"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=101931"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}