As Donte DiVincenzo plays a starring role for the New York Knicks, leading the franchise to the precipice of the Eastern Conference Finals, Milwaukee Bucks fans may wonder why their franchise couldn’t retain the team’s first-round pick in 2018.
DiVincenczo was with Milwaukee for three full seasons, including the championship run in 2020-21, although his playoff injury kept him out of most of the postseason. He was traded to the Sacramento Kings midway through the 2021-22 season in a deal that, in retrospect, doesn’t appear to have worked out much for the Bucks.
For a franchise that hasn’t had many first-round picks and limited success with the players selected, it’s easy to argue that DiVincenzo is the best first-round pick the franchise has made since drafting Giannis Antetokounmpo in 2013. It’s possible ( gulp) which is the second-best first-round pick in Bucks history since Andrew Bogut in 2005, depending on how you feel about John Henson or Brandon Jennings.
So why isn’t he playing in Milwaukee?
When and why did the Bucks trade Donté DiVincenzo?
In February 2022, the Milwaukee Bucks signed a four-team trade deadline deal with the Kings, Detroit Pistons and Los Angeles Clippers, acquiring 32-year-old big man Serge Ibaka from the Clippers. The biggest cost was trading DiVincenzo to the Kings.
The Bucks also received two second-round picks (2023 and 2024) and cash, while sending Semi Ojeleye and Rodney Hood to the Clippers. Ibaka was only under contract for the remainder of the 2022 season.
At the time, Ibaka provided big man depth while Brook Lopez recovered from a long absence resulting from back surgery.
DiVincenzo had torn an ankle ligament in the first round of the 2021 playoffs and was slow to return the following season, a return further delayed by a sprained ankle and a stint in the health and safety protocol. He averaged 8.8 points and 4.7 rebounds per game for the Bucks in his career, but that season he had dropped to 7.2 points in 20 minutes per game.
![What made the Bucks decide to trade Donte DiVincenzo, the breakout star of the NBA playoffs, to the Knicks? 2 Milwaukee Bucks forward Giannis Antetokounmpo (34) and forward Serge Ibaka (25) cheer on their team during a game early in the 2022-23 season at Fiserv Forum in Milwaukee. Ibaka was acquired in the Donte DiVincenzo trade during the 2021-22 season.](https://i0.wp.com/www.jsonline.com/gcdn/presto/2022/11/17/PMJS/e6141d1e-1f70-4331-823f-32afe28861bc-bucks16_18.jpg?w=1170&ssl=1)
How did Serge Ibaka help the Bucks after the trade?
Ibaka played 19 games that season, averaging 7.0 points in 17.8 minutes, with 5.3 rebounds.
The Bucks re-signed him for 2022-23, but he only played in 16 games (averaging 4.1 points in 11.6 minutes) and essentially parted ways with the team in January. He later revealed his discontent with the organization’s playing time and communication..
He became part of a four-team trade that brought Jae Crowder to Milwaukee from the Phoenix Suns. Ibaka hasn’t played in the NBA since.
What were Donte DiVincenzo’s stats after leaving Milwaukee?
DiVincenzo played 25 games for Sacramento in 2022 and scored 10.3 points per game.
A free agent at the time, DiVincenzo signed a two-year contract with the Golden State Warriors worth a total of $9.3 million, with a player option for the second year. That allowed him to pair up with Stephen Curry, and his three-point percentage shot up to a career-best 39.7% with 9.4 points and 3.5 assists per game in 26.3 minutes. .
This year with the Knicks, DiVincenzo averaged a career-best 15.5 points per game, along with 3.7 rebounds, 2.7 assists and a career-best 40% three-point shooting.
![What made the Bucks decide to trade Donte DiVincenzo, the breakout star of the NBA playoffs, to the Knicks? 3 Donte DiVincenzo throws down a monster dunk during Game 5 of the New York Knicks' Eastern Conference semifinal playoff series against the <a href=](https://i0.wp.com/www.jsonline.com/gcdn/authoring/images/smg/2024/05/15/USAT/73707273007-USATSI_23274779.jpeg?w=1170&ssl=1)
What is Donté DiVincenzo’s contract with the Knicks?
DiVincenzo decided to opt out of the second year of his contract with Golden State and signed a four-year deal with the Knicks ahead of the 2023-24 season, worth $50 million over four years. The signing allowed him to reconnect with Villanova teammates Jalen Brunson and Josh Hart, a combination that has apparently worked particularly well.
Could the Bucks have given that contract to Donté DiVincenzo?
There is no scenario in which the Bucks would have paid DiVincenzo what he asked for in free agency with the Knicks.
The Athletic’s John Hollinger wrote in October 2021, after the Bucks won the title, that DiVincenzo represented one of the most intriguing contract cases, and projected that someone with DiVincenzo’s stats could get a four-year, $99 deal million on the open market. Even if DiVincenzo couldn’t hit those numbers specifically, he could at least be on track to get a slightly shorter (but still lucrative) four-year deal.
That was before DiVincenzo was slow to return from injury and struggled before being traded to the Kings.
It’s easy to imagine the Bucks never expected to pay DiVincenzo what he would ask for elsewhere, even without the health questions. Trading Ibaka to strengthen their frontcourt depth and get ahead of a scenario where they would lose DiVincenzo for nothing seems like the best course of action, even in retrospect.
Unable to find that deal after his time in Sacramento, DiVincenzo decided to sign a short-term deal with the Warriors and turned it into a long-term deal a year later. It’s arguable that DiVincenzo would never become the player he became without the opportunity to play in Golden State, and yet he doesn’t have the contract he received from New York without finding such a perfect fit with the Knicks.
Remember: Even before the title, the Bucks had tried to trade Donté DiVincenzo
The Bucks had attempted to trade DiVincenzo to the Kings even before the title run in a deal that was rejected by the NBA. Milwaukee was ruled to have jumped the gun in trying to acquire Bogdan Bogdanović from the Kings in a sign-and-trade, essentially a tampering charge that cost the Bucks a second-round pick. The deal would have sent DiVincenzo, DJ Wilson and Ersan Ilyasova to the Kings.
DiVincenzo ended up staying another two seasons in Milwaukee, but it was clear that he could be seen as a trade asset.
The Bucks signaled they were more than prepared to move forward in 2021-22. Before finally trading DiVincenzo, they also traded for a similar player in Grayson Allen in 2022-22 and quickly extended him.
How many rings does Donté DiVincenzo have?
DiVincenzo was part of the 2021 Bucks and thus won a ring for his role on the championship-winning team.
That season he averaged 10.4 points per game for the Bucks with a career-high 5.8 rebounds, 3.1 assists and 38% three-point shooting.
He played on the Golden State team that beat DiVincenzo’s old team, the Kings, last year in the playoffs before falling in the Western Conference semifinals.
What is Donté DiVincenzo’s nickname?
Matt Velázquez of the Journal Sentinel once wrote about the origin of his nicknames, including Big Ragu, Delaware’s Michael Jordan and White Donté.
![What made the Bucks decide to trade Donte DiVincenzo, the breakout star of the NBA playoffs, to the Knicks? 4 Myles Turner (33) of the Indiana Pacers argues with Donte DiVincenzo of the New York Knicks during Game 5 on Tuesday at Madison Square Garden. The Knicks won, 121-91, to take a 3-2 lead in the series.](https://i0.wp.com/www.jsonline.com/gcdn/authoring/authoring-images/2024/05/15/USAT/73695190007-usatsi-23275911.jpg?w=1170&ssl=1)
Donte DiVincenzo vs. Pacers in the NBA Playoffs
DiVincenzo has played a great role against the Indiana Pacers, the team that eliminated the Bucks from the playoffs in the first round, in the Eastern Conference semifinals.
He scored 35 points, by far his playoff career-high, in Game 3 while playing nearly 44 minutes, although the Knicks lost that game. He scored 28 points in Game 2, his second-highest total in the playoffs, along with six rebounds and four assists in a victory. His third-highest single-game scoring total was 25 points against, you guessed it, the Pacers in Game 1 — another Knicks win.
The most points he scored in a game for the Bucks was 24, which was also his career-high in a single game at the start of this season. With the Knicks, he scored a career-high 40 points against Detroit on March 25 and scored 30 points six other times.
DiVincenzo produced a highlight-reel dunk against the Pacers in Game 5 of the series, a game won by the Knicks, and then received a technical foul while fighting with Indiana’s Myles Turner, an altercation that led to some pushing and shoving.
The Madison Square Garden crowd chanted DiVincenzo’s name after the play, and then he had a great quote about the fight with Turner.
“They’re trying to be tough guys. That’s not their identity,” DiVincenzo told reporters after the game. “There’s nothing more to it than that… Nobody’s going to fight in the NBA. Take the foul. Keep moving. You’re not a tough guy. Just keep moving.”
What is Donté DiVincenzo’s vertical jump?
At the NBA combine before the 2018 season, DiVincenzo recorded a 42-inch vertical jump, tied for the most of anyone at the combine.
He also would have tied for the best mark at this year’s combine.
Donté DiVincenzo has experience in football
DiVincenzo’s former coach, Jay Wright, told a story that DiVincenzo was recruited at his high school in Delaware to play football and that he was one of the top football recruits in the country.
A tweet from DiVincenzo containing a vulgar word in 2011 found renewed life in 2024 on the Internet, apparently expressing frustration with his father at the time he told him he was pursuing basketball instead.
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