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Not only has Dante Exum just scored Joe Ingles as a team-mate on the Utah Jazz, but the teenager has picked up a chauffeur, big brother, PlayStation video game combatant and possible room-mate.
The Boomer team-mates have a relationship that stretches back almost a decade.
When Ingles was a young gun in Melbourne on the NBL’s South Dragons, Exum was a fan who wore an Ingles singlet to games and scored a prized autograph from his favourite player.
When Exum broke into Boomer squads it was Ingles who was his room-mate, a relationship that continued in Spain at the recent World Cup.
Exum, 19, said he was at a Salt Lake City Department of Motor Vehicles registry on Monday getting his learner’s driving permit when Ingles, who had just been cut by the Los Angeles Clippers, sent him a text.
“I had a message on my phone that said, ‘What up team-mate?’,” Exum said on Tuesday.
It had been a couple of days of ups and downs for Exum, with another Boomer team-mate on the Jazz, Brock Motum, cut.
The Los Angeles Clippers waived Ingles on Saturday.
Ingles said he had heard rumours about other NBA teams putting the feelers out for him after the Clippers announced their decision, but then Utah made their move on Monday.
His fiancee, Australian netballer Renae Hallinan, had just flown in from Australia and suddenly they were on a plane to Utah.
“The last few days have been pretty crazy not knowing and then getting the call yesterday afternoon from these guys,” Ingles said.
“We jumped on a plane and came straight over.”
Exum and Ingles will suit up for the Jazz when they play the team’s opening regular season against the Houston Rockets on Wednesday in Salt Lake City.
For Exum, who was a high school student in Canberra a year ago, the game culminates a year of hype and negative comments from NBA analysts who disagreed if the teenager deserved Utah’s fifth pick in the NBA Draft.
“It is a dream come true,” Exum said about his NBA debut.
“I’m going to live in the moment for a bit and when I get there I’ll just go through my normal pre-game routine and treat it like another game.”
Exum’s mother Desiree has been his driver in Utah, but with the teenager yet to buy a car or master driving on the right hand side of the road, 27-year-old Ingles’ move to Utah will come in handy for lifts to practice and games.
“He’s going to be driver for now,” Exum laughed.
“It won’t have to be my Mum.”
Ingles, who has lived the past few months in a hotel in Los Angeles, says he might even move in with the Exums, continuing their roommate relationship.
If so, the team-mates can pick up on their battles on Exum’s PlayStation console.
Ingles recently bragged to a Utah newspaper he easily beat Exum at the FIFA soccer game when they had time off in Spain at the World Cup.
Exum says that’s not true.
“It’s a lie he always beat me,” Exum said.
“It was actually pretty even.”
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