NY Knicks

The New York Knicks wanted a shooter. They got one. They preferred an extra ballhandler. They got one of those, too. They searched for another hard-nosed personality. They landed that, as well. And they acquired it all in one player.

Over this past weekend, the Knicks finalized their pact with former Golden State Warriors guard Donte DiVincenzo, signing the shooting guard to a four-year, $47 million contract.

DiVincenzo may be new to New York, but he’s hardly unfamiliar to the rest of the NBA.

The Milwaukee Bucks drafted him at No. 17 in 2018. He made a pit stop with the Sacramento Kings before heading to the Warriors last summer. Now that he’s with the Knicks, let’s dive deep into his history.

Knicks beat writer Fred Katz gathered the two reporters who have covered DiVincenzo at previous stops — Warriors beat writer Anthony Slater and Bucks beat writer Eric Nehm — to discuss what the 26-year-old could offer his new squad, his fit with New York, his career-best shooting performance, his biggest improvements since joining the NBA and more.

Here is what they had to say.

Katz: DiVincenzo signed for $47 million over four seasons, almost all of the midlevel exception. What do you think of the contract? And what are your thoughts on his fit with the Knicks?

Slater: I think it’s fair value for both sides. I view the prototypical midlevel candidate as a high-minute bench guy who can spot start and close on any given night. DiVincenzo can and has competed for contending teams at two stops early in his career. There are a few other players who grabbed contracts this summer near DiVincenzo’s average annual value: Joe Ingles, Matisse Thybulle, Gabe Vincent, Coby White, Dennis Schröder. If you ranked that group, he’d be toward the top.

He’s going to fit with the Knicks from a culture standpoint. He’s a smart player, competitive defender and sneaky rebounder who makes winning plays in the margins. The Villanova background is real. Knicks head coach Tom Thibodeau will love him. But it does feel like there’s a positional logjam and maybe some roster overlap in New York. You’d have a better feel for that, Fred. But I will say that DiVincenzo was in a pretty crowded backcourt last season and seamlessly shifted between roles – bench, starter, on ball, off ball, used as a wing in three-guard lineups. He’s a flexible piece.

Katz: There’s no question about the log jam. The Knicks have Jalen Brunson, Immanuel Quickley, Quentin Grimes, Josh Hart and RJ Barrett already. If the roster stays as is, they can open it up some by using Hart and Barrett at backup power forward. Those small lineups can provide more shooting than the Knicks could put out last season when they struggled from behind the arc. The addition of DiVincenzo will be a big part of that.

So, let’s get to his 3-point shooting next, since he was better than ever from deep this past season. He shot a career-best 40 percent from 3-point range. How much of that do you think had to do with him playing alongside Hall of Famers who attracted loads of attention and how much of that was legitimate shooting improvement? The Knicks don’t have the spacers that Golden State does. Do you see his jumpers becoming more difficult outside of the Warriors offense?

Slater: His shot was one of the biggest questions entering last season. It’s why the Warriors were able to steal him on a $4.3 million bargain. He said he was rusty after returning from that bad ankle injury and that’s why he struggled to shoot it his final season in Milwaukee (and during his brief stay in Sacramento). The cumulative 3-point percentage leading into last season: 33.9 percent.

He was proven correct. A healthier DiVincenzo made 39.7 percent of his 3s on a high volume (150 of 378) in his lone season as a Warrior. The extra space in lineups with both Steph Curry and Klay Thompson helped. Tracking data shows that nearly all of his 3s were with at least four feet of space. Maybe that closes a bit with the Knicks. But he has a pretty quick trigger and made 42 percent of his catch-and-shoots. I’d imagine 39.7 percent overall from 3 may be the high side for his career, but I’d bet he’ll live in the 37 percent range for the Knicks next season.

Katz: How about another part of his offense? DiVincenzo could make plays when he needed to last season. How do you believe he is best used as a ballhandler?

Slater: As a secondary creator.

Don’t put him up top and design pick-and-roll touches for him. That isn’t an efficient way to score. But he can grab and go with a rebound, make a play late in the clock if it’s swung his direction and also run a more elaborate set when needed. The Warriors start Curry off the ball a ton, which meant DiVincenzo would bring the ball up in certain lineups. He’s an unspectacular but safe ballhandler. Warriors coach Steve Kerr trusted him, which says plenty.

Katz: DiVincenzo isn’t particularly long and he’s not a shutdown one-on-one defender, but he is feisty. He’s sneaky in passing lanes, as I wrote about earlier this week. He’ll get steals. He could get out on the break last season. The Knicks play a specific type of defense; the Tom Thibodeau special, if you will. They want to take away the paint. They collapse in from the corners whenever dribblers infiltrate the lane and have to recover onto shooters with urgency.

Eric, I’m curious to get your take on this. DiVincenzo has played with a physical rim protector before in Milwaukee. How do you see him fitting into a defensive system like the one the Knicks have?

Nehm: DiVincenzo has a nose for the ball and strong instincts, so despite having short arms, he typically does a nice job causing chaos for opposing offenses. He jumps passing lanes well and often deflects dribbles and passes as a help defender, which has led to a strong steal rate throughout his career.

It might be a slightly underrated skill, but DiVincenzo is an elite defensive rebounder. He’s athletic enough to go battle and grab rebounds among the trees around the rim. This made him a solid match for Brook Lopez because Lopez could freely try to block and influence shots because he trusted DiVincenzo to help clean up the glass. It seems possible that DiVincenzo could do similar things with the Knicks, especially after seeing another elite defensive rebounder like Josh Hart have success last season.

Katz: What would you say is the skill DiVincenzo has improved on the most since entering the NBA? What is the one that he still needs to develop most?

Nehm: As a rookie, DiVincenzo shot just 27 percent from the 3-point line in limited action before suffering a left foot injury that forced him to miss the second half of that season. He then hit 34 percent from 3, but when he took over as a full-time starter for the Bucks in the 2020-21 season, he made 38 percent from 3. Aside from an injury-riddled start to the 2021-22 season where he struggled with just about everything offensively, including his shot, DiVincenzo has been a consistently good shooter.

As for what he needs to improve on, DiVincenzo is athletic and shifty enough to get to the basket, but he just hasn’t been a strong enough finisher throughout his career. Last season, he made 63 percent of his shots at the rim, which was a massive improvement for him, but still roughly league average for his position, according to Cleaning the Glass. In the 2020-21 season, DiVincenzo made just 54 percent of his attempts at the rim and was even worse in the 2021-22 season, when he made only 46 percent of his shots at the rim with the Bucks and the Kings.

Katz: Tell me something fun or interesting you’ve learned over the years about DiVincenzo that I don’t know.

Nehm: While I don’t know what jersey number he will wear in New York, DiVincenzo once told me that he wore zero in Milwaukee (and subsequently Sacramento and Golden State) because he idolized Russell Westbrook when he was growing up and he always felt like he could associate his own game with Westbrook’s.

LAS VEGAS — Unless an unassuming dribbler politely places the basketball into a defender’s hands, the New York Knicks do not want your turnovers. They say “no thank you” to steals and want no part of pick-sixes. Instead, they prefer that you miss a shot so they can return judiciously up the court with the ball in hand.

At least during this last regular season, the defense was consistent in its morals: Whether it was forcing stop after stop or allowing make after make, it did not gun for takeaways. Steals that occur inorganically are not the Knicks’ thing, nor have they ever been under this coaching staff. Defenders don’t jolt into passing lanes, hoping for an interception but leaving a path to the hoop open as a result. The Knicks at their best are Darrelle Revis, not Antonio Cromartie.

Tom Thibodeau’s defenses notoriously stay solid — dating back to his initial days as a head coach, a time so long ago that it was New York’s actual era of Revis and Cromartie. Thibodeau’s teams are disciplined. They aim to cut off as many avenues to the basket as they can. The Knicks defense was 25th in the NBA in turnover rate this past season, and the low number was by design.

New York doesn’t gamble as some other teams do. It hasn’t risen above the league’s bottom 10 in turnover rate since Thibodeau took over. But it’s not like that’s the only way his teams are willing to play. For example, Thibodeau’s Minnesota Timberwolves squads of yesteryear took far more chances. And it’s possible the Knicks’ freshest addition, Donte DiVincenzo, can provide a new element.

New York officially signed DiVincenzo to a four-year, $47 million contract over the weekend. And the former Golden State Warriors guard will add more than extra ballhandling and shooting. He’s also a pest in passing lanes.

Hyperbole aside, the Knicks aren’t principally against forcing turnovers. They talk often about wanting to get out on the run. Of course, the best way to do that is by snagging the basketball from their opponents. They leaned into takeaways during their first-round playoff series against the Cleveland Cavaliers this past spring. It was one of the major reasons they ousted the Cavs in only five games.

This season’s team could be even better equipped to disrupt.

It will have a full season of Josh Hart, possibly the group’s best deflector, instead of just a couple of months of him, as it did last season, considering Hart arrived at the trade deadline.

And it will have DiVincenzo, who swarms dribblers, cuts off passing lanes and knows when to get handsy. He’s become crafty stripping penetrators (he loves a swift, downward swipe) as they go up for layups. He can pull off plays like the one below regularly, whether he’s darting from the weak side or, like on this one, drifting from the strong side onto the driver while still keeping an eye on his man and understanding when to recover back onto him.

DiVincenzo averaged 3.4 deflections per 36 minutes with the Golden State Warriors this past season, 11th among qualifying players in the NBA and far more than any Knicks player posted. Place him on the weak side, and he can disrupt.

Assuming he comes off the bench and Quentin Grimes continues to start at shooting guard, that trait would work particularly well with the Knicks’ second unit, which could blaze.

Immanuel Quickley pushes pace at the point. And he’ll have ballhandlers around him: DiVincenzo, Hart, Isaiah Hartenstein and possibly RJ Barrett, who Thibodeau likes to mix in with the reserves. It provides the Knicks with a little more stylistic variety.

DiVincenzo’s effect on the defense is just one topic of the week. Here are a couple more thoughts on the Knicks’ offseason: Donte’s dazzling deal

We should have known DiVincenzo’s four-year deal with the Knicks would be offbeat. But this time, contract creativity could have negative repercussions for New York.

DiVincenzo’s agent, Jason Glushon, is known around the industry to add fun quirks to his contracts — purely because … why not? A few years back, he negotiated and wrote the cheapest bonus in league history into Spencer Dinwiddie’s contract: $1 if Dinwiddie’s team wins the title. He put together the Jericho Sims contract, too, which is loaded with far more dates that trigger guaranteed money throughout the year than your average deal has.

The DiVincenzo contract, meanwhile, is a doozy.

He is guaranteed $47 million over four years but also will receive $750,000 a season in unlikely bonuses (“unlikely” is a technical term, meaning he did not accomplish them in the previous season). It’s a fair contract for a player of DiVincenzo’s caliber. But it’s also a confusing one from the Knicks’ perspective.

First, let’s dive into the unlikely incentives, which are nothing short of glorious.

According to a league source who knows the contract details, the deal includes unlikelies for reaching the NBA Finals as well as ones for (take a deep breath if you are reading out loud and also grab some water in case you get lightheaded) winning MVP, defensive player of the year, sixth man of the year, most improved player, first team All-NBA, second team All-NBA, third team All-NBA, first team all-defense, second team all-defense and making the All-Star Game.

The technical term for these incentives may be “unlikely,” but the colloquial one is “not gonna happen.” The two sides should have placed an NBA Rookie of the Year bonus in there just for fun. But as spectacular and seemingly harmless as these bonuses are for DiVincenzo, considering he won’t garner an MVP any time soon, there should be questions about why the Knicks allowed these into the deal, especially with the way the new collective bargaining agreement works.

Unlikely incentives that teams throw into deals just for kicks, the ones that are Krispy Kreme for contract nerds such as anyone who is still somehow reading this, should become a thing of the past for teams in the Knicks’ financial position. Because New York gave DiVincenzo more than $5 million of the midlevel exception, it hard-capped itself at $172.3 million. In other words: the Knicks’ payroll, under no circumstances and at no time, can go over that number.

As The Athletic addressed last week, ever since Leon Rose took over as team president in 2020, this team has done whatever it could to establish flexibility not to sign a star but to trade for one. The Knicks have loaded up with first-round picks and tradeable, middle-class contracts. But now they are even closer to the hard cap than it appears at first glance.

They are pushing up against the luxury tax threshold, which is $165.3 million, $7 million short of the hard cap. And teams don’t get taxed on their unlikely incentives (unless a player earns them), but there is a twist: Whether DiVincenzo wins MVP or not, his $750,000 a year in unlikely bonuses still count against the hard cap. And that’s where we get into the Knicks eating into their flexibility.

Evan Fournier and Barrett already have $4.4 million combined in unlikely incentives in their deals. DiVincenzo’s now brings the team total to $5.2 million.

It means the Knicks could be pushing up against the luxury tax threshold (which, again, is $7 million short of the hard cap) but would be only $2 million short of the hard cap.

So, what happens if things go south in, say, Philadelphia midway through the season, and Joel Embiid says he wants out? The Knicks could have to include someone extra just to make the money work — and it could be because they agreed to include a series of delightful (but possibly hampering) bonuses for DiVincenzo. The Toppin picks

The Knicks received two second-round picks from the Indiana Pacers in the Obi Toppin trade. Chances are, neither selection will be in the 30s, either.

The Pacers will send New York the least favorable of their second-rounder or the Phoenix Suns’ second-rounder in 2028 as well as the least favorable of their second-rounder or the Washington Wizards’ second-rounder in 2029.

To get an idea of where these selections could end up, let’s use the same logic front offices do to determine the value of a draft pick.

NBA teams use modeling to project where picks could end up. And there is one theme to the process: it’s nearly impossible to predict how good a team will be five or six years into the future. Plug in any team’s 2029 second-round pick, and the formula will churn out a selection around No. 45, smack in the middle of the round — exactly average.

But the Knicks have the least favorable of two teams’ picks, which means models would project that pick a little lower than exactly average: somewhere in the range of No. 48 or maybe trickling into the 50s, depending on which team’s formula we use.

It’s not much for Toppin, who the Knicks drafted No. 8 only three years ago, but such is the going rate for former lottery picks who teams are looking to trade. The Pacers just dealt the 26-year-old Chris Duarte, who they chose No. 13 only two years ago, for a couple of far-out second-rounders, as well.

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LAS VEGAS — Able to discuss the Team USA roster he will coach this summer for the first time, Steve Kerr said he plans to lean heavily on two of New York’s finest — the Knicks’ Jalen Brunson and the Nets’ Mikal Bridges.

“I will definitely go into this with a vision of Jalen Brunson taking on a pretty big role, given the way he plays, his success at the FIBA level in past tournaments,” Kerr said in a news conference Friday, one day after USA Basketball formally announced its 12-man team for the 2023 FIBA World Cup.

“There’s no question in my mind that Mikal Bridges is going to be a huge factor for us defensively,” Kerr continued. “As a coach, you go into these things and you say, ‘Well, who is gonna guard Luka (Doncic), or who’s gonna guard Giannis (Antetokounmpo)?’ One of the reasons we built the roster the way we did is we have multiple options for these sorts of things.”

Kerr, the Golden State Warriors coach by day, is in his first season as head coach for the national team, following a two-year cycle in which he was a lead assistant under Gregg Popovich.

None of the current players have played for Team USA at a World Cup or Olympics, but, as Kerr alluded to, Brunson played for the Americans in 2014 and 2015 at FIBA World Championships for 18- and 19-year-olds.

Brunson will share point guard duties for Team USA with the Pacers’ Tyrese Haliburton, whom Kerr cited for his “playmaking” as a first-time All-Star in 2023 who averaged 10.4 assists. Kerr also highlighted the Nets’ Cam Johnson’s “ability to stretch the floor and shoot.”

And that’s not all.

There is, of course, the NBA’s reigning Defensive Player of the Year (Memphis’ Jaren Jackson Jr.) and, a thorn in Kerr’s side from the Western Conference semifinals (the Lakers’ Austin Reaves) to consider.

“In FIBA, there’s no defensive three-second violations,” Kerr said, speaking of Jackson, who led the NBA with 3.0 blocks per game last season. “So to have a shot blocker of Jaren’s quality and a presence at the rim like him is almost a necessity if you want to win a gold medal. So we are going to rely on him for his presence at the rim, his force defensively, his ability to help from the weak side and cover up mistakes and back cuts, that sort of thing. And then on the offensive end, he’s a guy who’s a good pick-and-pop player. As he’s shown over the years with Memphis, he can step out and make a 3 but also score inside, so he is really versatile.”

As for Reaves, Kerr said, “watching him kick our butts for six straight games in the Western Conference semis, it was a pretty easy choice.”

“Austin is one of the rising young players in this league,” Kerr said. “What you look for in FIBA is versatility. You want size defensively and the ability to switch and guard multiple positions, and then you want playmaking. You want guys who can make shots but also put the ball on the floor and are good passers.

“Austin is just, to me, he’s a basketball player. He’s a guy who impacts winning at a really high level. His story is pretty amazing given that he was undrafted two years ago and now here he is, you know, playing for Team USA and being one of the Lakers’ top three players. But it’s not an accident.”

Kerr also spoke privately with The Athletic about the two players who could wind up leading the team in scoring, the Pelicans’ Brandon Ingram and Minnesota’s Anthony Edwards.

“They are such dynamic scorers, they are obviously going to play big roles for us,” Kerr said, adding that he wouldn’t know the specifics of how his lineup and rotation will shake out until he sees the team practice together.

“We’ll need everybody,” Kerr said.

Also at Kerr’s disposal is Paolo Banchero, the reigning Rookie of the Year (whom managing director Grant Hill called a “neighbor” because they live in Orlando); a defensive wing in the Knicks’ Josh Hart; a rim protector in Utah’s Walker Kessler and a reserve big in Milwaukee’s Bobby Portis (Hill and Kerr were asked about Portis, and they praised, surprise, his versatility as a two-way player).

In considering how Hill, Kerr and longtime USA general manager Sean Ford built this team, think about Kerr’s comments about Reaves. Versatility on both sides of the floor. Most, if not all of these players, have it.

The Americans play exhibition games in Las Vegas (Aug. 7, against Puerto Rico), in Malaga, Spain (against Slovenia and Spain) and Abu Dhabi (against Greece and Germany), before the World Cup begins on Aug. 26 against New Zealand, in Manila.

In addition to playing for a World Cup title, which the Americans last won in 2014 (they finished seventh in 2019), also on the line this summer is a spot in the highly coveted 2024 Paris Olympics — a basketball tournament in which many of the more established, veteran American stars from the NBA are expected to want to play in.

None of the 12 on the 2023 American team are guaranteed a spot on the Olympic team, though dedicating their summer and winning the World Cup would be a good start to making a case. The USA dozen were handpicked by Hill, Kerr and Ford, based in part on fit and also on availability.

There were a number of players Hill spoke to about playing this summer who either weren’t interested or injured or prefer to play next summer.

“There was a real, genuine excitement to be a part of this, and I found that very encouraging and exciting from my standpoint,” Hill said. “And maybe a few conversations to talk about the possibility of the future came up, but for the most part it was really centered on right here, right now, this team. How it’s constructed in this opportunity that we have in front of us this summer. So there were no promises or guarantees or anything of that nature, and, you know, obviously, we’ll get to next year when we get there and go through the process again, which I would imagine will be a very different process.”