Donte DiVincenzo joined FanDuel Sports North’s Katie Storm for a postgame interview following the Minnesota Timberwolves’ 112-110 win over the San Antonio Spurs Sunday night. Chants of “DON-TE, DON-TE, DON-TE” from the smattering of Wolves fans still in the building interrupted their conversation.
DiVincenzo looked at the crowd momentarily and cracked one of those smiles you can’t control. His entire face lit up at his new fanbase giving him his first personalized moment.
“It’s amazing,” DiVincenzo quickly said. “This feels like home. Let’s keep it going.”
His response to the outpouring of love was short. Donte’s smile quickly faded into his typical stoic look, but it was easy to tell how much the support meant to him.
He scored a season-high 26 points on 8 of 15 from the floor and 5 of 10 from deep in 34 minutes off the bench. DiVincenzo’s first signature performance in his new home gym powered the Timberwolves to their third-straight win. The showing wasn’t new for DiVincenzo, who had many high-scoring games during his time with the New York Knicks. However, it was the first time Wolves fans saw why Tim Connelly coveted Donte for a long time.
DiVincenzo knew he would eventually break through with his new team. In the meantime, he has had to master patience, allowing him to master everything else.
The Wolves have struggled to push the right buttons this year. They are only three games over .500 with 51 games left in the regular season. Their slow start has sparked deafening noise from a fanbase missing Karl-Anthony Towns and quickly growing impatient after their team made a Western Conference Finals run last season.
“Obviously, everybody knows what this team did last year, but this team is not last year’s team,” DiVincenzo said following Minnesota’s 113-103 loss to the Golden State Warriors a week ago. “We, collectively in here, have let that go. We are building to something great. We feel that we have something great here. It’s all about sticking together and building through the bumps.”
It’s difficult for fans to let go of last year’s successes. It’s difficult for them not to wish Connelly never made the KAT trade, giving the team one more shot to win it all together. Fans naturally think to themselves, What if?
Those are all human reactions.
While the fanbase has held onto the past, so has DiVincenzo.
“From what I felt, I think [Donte] was still holding onto some frustration from what happened,” Rudy Gobert told the media Sunday regarding New York’s decision to trade DiVincenzo. “It’s human, but when you want to succeed, you must let that go. Now, from what I am feeling, he is finally present. He is happy. He is himself. He is in the moment. He’s able to have fun by being who he is and be fully, mentally there.”
DiVincenzo wasn’t expecting the Knicks to trade him so late in the off-season. “I was at home chilling,” he told the media on Sunday, “The next thing I know, I am on a flight to Minnesota.”
The Wolves are Donte’s fifth team in seven NBA seasons. He’s no stranger to packing up his things and moving to a new city, but that doesn’t make the moving process any easier.
All players go through an acclimation period when they get traded. Some can fit in more naturally than others and quickly pick up where they left off with their previous team. For others, it takes longer to feel at home on and off the court in their new city.
The numbers say DiVincenzo has always needed time to find his groove with a new team.
“I know what I can do. Everyone on the team knows what I can do,” DiVincenzo explained on Sunday. “It’s more on the mental side of things. There are no excuses. There is a grace period I have to give myself as well — understanding this is a new offense, new city, new everything.”
DiVincenzo averaged 8.3 points on 35.3% from the floor and 31.9% from deep over the first 25 games this season. It was a far cry from the player fans watched in the playoffs last year, where Donte averaged 17.8 points on 41.9% from the floor and 41.5% from deep.
It would have been one thing if the Wolves had started the season hot. However, glaring issues have plagued them for three months, and they are playing at a level much lower than their off-season expectations. The slow start could have compounded things for DiVincenzo, but he patiently trusted the process and remained confident that he would eventually find a groove.
“The conversations with teammates, coaches, and the front office have that at-home feel,” said DiVincenzo. “That reassurance of, ‘Just go play. Don’t worry about anything else. Just go play.’ [Also] telling myself that. It’s one thing for someone else to tell you, and you are in your own head, but understanding just to get comfortable. Just be yourself, get comfortable, and whatever happens, happens.”
Over the last six games, DiVincenzo is averaging 16.8 points on 50% from the floor and 48.9% from deep. He quickly snapped back into a player his coaches cannot remove off the floor. Still, the stretch started with Chris Finch leaving DiVincenzo on the court for the garbage minutes of Minnesota’s blowout 133-107 loss in KAT’s return to Target Center on December 19.
Finch most likely wanted to instill confidence in DiVincenzo by letting him play the entire fourth quarter. Donte recorded 11 points, three assists, and 3 of 4 from deep in the frame. Playing in garbage time could have been demoralizing for DiVincenzo, but that didn’t seem to be the case. He played free down the stretch and saw some shots find the bottom of the net.
Things have clicked for him since then. DiVincenzo put up only 11 points on 3 of 7 from deep on Christmas Day against the Dallas Mavericks, but he looked confident. Over the next two games, DiVincenzo recorded a combined 48 points on 11 of 20 (55%) from deep in 71 minutes, the most minutes by a Timberwolves bench player in a two-game span since 2015.
DiVincenzo has returned to the version of himself that he has been for most of his career. He’s a key piece off the bench who is hard to take off the floor. Donte getting back to this high level of play felt inevitable. Therefore, the numbers he has been putting up lately aren’t surprising. Neither is his impact on Minnesota’s team-wide success.
“He’s giving us everything,” Finch said Sunday regarding DiVincenzo’s performance. “He’s giving us everything we knew he was, with the rebounding, defense, shot-making, and the smart plays.”
DiVincenzo played two long stints in Minnesota’s comeback win against the Houston Rockets on Friday. Finch subbed him in with 5:07 left in the first quarter and played Donte the rest of the first half. He got a short break to start the third quarter, but Finch quickly brought DiVincenzo back into the game with 7:30 left in the third quarter and never subbed him out.
On Sunday, it was more of the same. DiVincenzo played the final 16 minutes of the first half, rested for six minutes to start the second half, and closed the remaining 17 minutes.
DiVincenzo has been the master of Minnesota’s offense, leaving Finch with no other option but to keep him out there for lengthy shifts, just like Tom Thibodeau did in New York.
On top of DiVincenzo finding his long-range shot again, he’s also sparking a sense of controlled pace that the starters have been lacking and setting the tone on defense with a slew of small hustle plays. The Wolves have outscored their opponents by 34 points with DiVincenzo on the floor over the last two games.
They won each of those games by a single score.
“Incredible,” said Gobert Sunday regarding DiVincenzo’s boost. “He’s been himself – making plays on both ends, high IQ plays, the right plays, and knocking down big shots. That’s who he is.”
DiVincenzo’s teammates, coaches, and the front office personnel who traded for him have injected Donte with confidence. They knew that his sluggish start was not permanent. DiVincenzo’s recent outburst of importance embodies a healthy environment and highlights his patience paying off.
“Whatever shot I get is a good shot,” said DiVincenzo. “Everybody in this locker room knows that we are living with me shooting threes. That’s the most confidence you can have – knowing that every time you release the ball, everybody on the bench and court thinks it’s going in.”
Donte knew his first season in Minnesota would be a journey after the Knicks unexpectedly traded him so close to training camp. Now, he is proving that the master of patience is also the master of everything else.
