Following the blockbuster trade that saw the New York Knicks acquire Karl-Anthony Towns from the Minnesota Timberwolves in exchange for Donte DiVincenzo and Julius Randle, rumors came out that DiVincenzo was unhappy with what his role was going to look like in New York after they acquired Mikal Bridges earlier in the offseason.
Donte DiVincenzo shuts down the notion that he was unhappy with the Knicks
Prior to Sunday’s preseason matchup between the Knicks and Timberwolves, the first such meeting since the trade, DiVincenzo quickly shut down the notion that there was any bad blood between him and the Knicks.
“Obviously everyone wants to start coming off the season I had last year, but I also understand that there’s different lineups and different combinations that teams want to get to – I understand that. It was never a thing of, ‘Oh, we got Mikal, I’m pissed off.’ I was super excited,” DiVincenzo told the New York Post’s Stefan Bondy.
The Knicks nearly achieved a rare feat prior to the trade
Had the trade not occurred, the Knicks were on the brink of accomplishing an incredibly rare feat in the NBA. They would have had four college teammates all reunite on one team, as DiVincenzo was on the 2016 championship Villanova squad with Bridges, Jalen Brunson, and Josh Hart.
The expectation was that the group was going to help lead the Knicks to the promised land through chemistry built on a very close bond. But alas, that dream died out following the trade, so the focus will have to shift from the Nova’ Knicks fantasy.
DiVincenzo added that his focus on the Knicks this season was on all of the pieces they had, not just his former college teammates:
“Take the Villanova s–t out of it, I was super excited because we have a very good player coming back to the team,” DiVincenzo said to the New York Post’s Stefan Bondy. “And you get OG [Anunoby] back, now you’re looking at, ‘Wow we’re going to be really good.’ There was never a conversation of my role was going to be diminished. There was never a role that my minutes would be diminished. It was the outside assumption and ran with it and it was untrue.”
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DiVincenzo was going to have a different role had he stayed with the Knicks
DiVincenzo has his best NBA season in his only year with the Knicks. He averaged a career-high 15 points per game and broke the franchise record for most threes made in a season with 283, a record previously held by Evan Fournier. The Bridges acquisition would’ve almost guaranteed a demotion to the bench for DiVincenzo, and it was unclear exactly when he would be best used in games.
Undoubtedly, the volume of shots for him was going to suffer a dramatic decrease, which would have led to a diminished role compared to the expanded opportunity he got last season when the Knicks’ roster became depleted after many players suffered injuries. However, it is clear that none of that deterred DiVincenzo, but he won’t have the chance to show that he could’ve had a major impact playing a different role for the Knicks.
