Ranking Top 7 draft busts with the No. 5 pick in lottery era

4 of 8

Dante Exum, Utah Jazz. Photo by Gene Sweeney Jr./Getty Images /

Draft Bust No. 5: Dante Exum, 2014

Dante Exum looked like an exciting, can’t-miss point guard prospect when he came into the league in 2014. The Australian guard was a high school star in his home country before the Utah Jazz took him fifth overall in the 2014 NBA Draft.

Exum is long and athletic, and if he could put together the shooting and scoring aspects of his game he projected to be a two-way monster at point guard. Unfortunately for Exum and the Jazz that didn’t happen, as the most points per game Exum ever averaged was 8.1, and for his career he shot 30.5 percent from deep.

A big part of his lack of development was a lost season due to a knee injury, and whether it was the injury or other factors, things never came together for him. Exum’s defense kept him in the league for a while, spending parts of two seasons on the Cleveland Cavaliers after five with the Jazz, but he now plays overseas.

Just Missed: Former Defensive Player of the Year Marcus Smart went one pick later, a painful reality for a Utah team trying to find a point guard. Julius Randle just made his second All-NBA team and went seventh, while Zach LaVine went 13th. The real gem from this draft was of course Nikola Jokic, but since he went 41st overall we can’t slam the Pistons any more than the other 29 teams.

Pistons that Year: The Detroit Pistons sent the ninth overall pick to the Charlotte Hornets as part of an earlier trade for Corey Maggette in 2012. They did hit on their second-round pick, Spencer Dinwiddie, but the point guard didn’t break out until he was with Brooklyn a few years later.