It is time to give Donte DiVincenzo all of his deserved flowers

NEW YORK, July 8, 2023 – New York Knicks announced today that the team has signed guard Donte DiVincenzo to a contract. Terms of the deal were not disclosed.

That is how the franchise shared the news nearly eight months ago. The details weren’t revealed then and there, but New York had completed its first (and ultimately, only) free-agent signing of the summer by inking former NBA and NCAA champion DiVincenzo to a four-year, $47 million to bolster their shooting-guard rotation after moving on from forward Obi Toppin one day earlier.

“Tom [Thibodeau] is going to love him, because Donte is a grinder. He’s gritty and he plays hard every possession. Tom is going to love that,” Warriors head coach Steve Kerr told the New York Post last July once the signing was made official.

DiVo didn’t win the chip with the Dubs in 2023, instead rebuilding his value after hoisting the Larry O’B in 2021 as a member of the Milwaukee Bucks in just his third season in the league, starting all 66 games he appeared in during the regular season but only three times throughout the playoffs before suffering a season-ending injury cutting his postseason run short.

The former Villanova Wildcat spent the 2022 season in Milwaukee and Sacramento following a trade-deadline move to Cali that involved four teams, a few draft picks, and many more players. He finished the year with the Kings, signed a one-year pact with the Warriors in 2022, and the rest is history.

“I didn’t wanna leave (Golden State),” DiVincenzo told Fred Katz of The Athletic. “It was a great situation.”

Truth be told, DiVo might be right. He played 72 games last season starting 36 and logging a near-career-high 26 MPG. He averaged more than nine points, four rebounds, three assists, and one steal per game. He slashed 43.5/39.7/81.7. And perhaps most importantly, he learned from the greatest shooter ever: Wardell Stephen Curry II.

“You wanna emulate [Steph’s shooting]. You wanna be like that. All the kids wanna be like that,” DiVincenzo told Katz. “But there is a real piece where you look in the mirror—I’m not him. No one is him. Steph is Steph. He’s proving that year after year.”

Tonight, Thursday, Feb. 29, both Steph and Donte will face each other on opposite sides of the Madison Square Garden court for the first time in their careers, let alone this season. They have battled four times before. The record? 3-1 DiVo.

Now a starter in New York (40-of-58 games and going) since replacing former Knicks guard Quentin Grimes in the starting lineup last December, DiVincenzo is logging a little over 25 MPG while shooting nearly 11 FGA a pop. No need to mention he’s never gotten such a bright green light before.

DiVo is making almost five of those 11 attempts per game, but the most impressive thing is how he’s leveled up his long-range shooting prowess, going from a superb 39.7 3P% last year to a gaudy 41.6% this season while taking two more three-ball shots per outing.

The full-season numbers aren’t telling because they include a pre-starting stint in which DiVincenzo’s role didn’t quite allow him to showcase his full array of talents.

If you peep at the charts above, you can easily spot an outlier smacked right in the middle of both pictures, nearly coinciding with the G30 mark of the season: that’s Dec. 30, the first date in which the Knicks played without Immanuel Quickley and RJ Barrett, both sent to Toronto in exchange for OG Anunoby among other players. That day, DiVo attempted a season-high 21 FGA connecting on 15 of them from the floor and going 7-of-11 from beyond the 3-point arc.

Before Dec. 30, DiVincenzo had attempted 10+ FGA only six times in the prior 31 games. After that, starting in New Year’s matchup against the Minnesota Timberwolves, DiVo has hoisted 10+ FGA in all but three games of the 26 he’s played—and started, for that matter.

Most 3PA per game since Jan. 1st

DiVincenzo ranks second trailing only Steph in 3PA per game since New Year and is one of only two players taking more than 10 three-point shots per game in the first two months of the 2024 calendar year. You’d assume Steph has earned the right to take as many shots, as wild as they might be at times, and his 3P% of 41.1 percent certainly proves it. DiVo’s not far from that, mind you, at a staggering 39.5 percent.

That 39.5-percent figure ranks fifth among players shooting 8+ 3PA per game since Jan. 1, including Steph, D’Angelo Russell, CJ McCollum, and Donovan Mitchell. Only Mitchell is attempting more than 9+ 3PA, and even then his accuracy is just 0.2 percent above Donte’s figure.

Highest 3P% (min. 8 3PA per game) since Jan. 1st

Just last Wednesday, in the loss against the Pelicans, DiVo nearly made Knicks history falling only four 3-point-shot attempts short of J.R. Smith’s 22 3PA back in 2014 for the most in a single game. That said, DiVincenzo still made seven of his 18 3PA (for the record, Smith topped that with 10 3PM in that match from a decade ago).

As I already researched for yesterday’s game recap, in the history of the Association, DiVo is one of only 35 players to have completed 6+ games with 7+ 3PM in a single season. It’s fair to assume he still has at least one, probably two more in his bag. That would put the guard in rarefied air, to say the least: just 18 players have had seven such games, only 16 had eight such outings, and a ridiculously short 13-man group has ever made the nine-game list.

Actually, that’s not entirely true if you look at the actual men/names in the list, which is simply a bunch of the same letters repeating over and over again: Steph Curry, James Harden, Damian Lillard, and Klay Thompson are in possession of 14-of-16 seasons with 8+ games in which they scored 7+ 3PM. The other two: Donovan Mitchell last year and George McCloud in 1996.

Asked about DiVincenzo following Tuesday’s loss, Thibs had this to say, per Peter Botte of the New York Post.

“Overall, (I like) everything. The hustle, the shooting...”

“He came into the season shooting really well, he got off to a great start. And I thought that was a by-product of the work he put in during the summer.”

“He hit the ground running and hasn’t stopped. He’s another one (player available), having all the players out—he’s really grown during this stretch.”

“This is probably his best stretch of basketball and he’s doing it on both sides of the ball.”

With the Knicks still having 20 games left in their schedule starting with a home matchup against the Warriors later today, DiVincenzo has already made 184 three-point shots and is clearly on pace to break Evan Fournier’s single-season record of 241 through the 2022 campaign.

Nothing is set in stone and DiVo will need to navigate some ebbs and flows, including (we hope) the return of the currently banged-up and sidelined Knicks—Julius Randle, Mitchell Robinson, OG Anunoby, and others that have missed time here and there (Jalen Brunson and Isaiah Hartenstein)—and that could potentially impact the way he’s used and how much leeway his shooting is given during the home-stretch part of the season.

That said, it’s probable we’re witnessing Knicks history for the second time in three seasons with Donte about to become the best sharpshooter to ever put on a uniform with NEW YORK stitched across his chest.

Donte DiVincenzo: flowers deserved and earned.