One of the best-known players in Delaware basketball history is reportedly on the move yet again.
NBA guard Donte DiVincenzo has agreed to a $50 million, four-year deal with the New York Knicks, ESPN first reported Saturday, quoting DiVincenzo’s agent. The Associated Press confirmed this news with an anonymous source on Sunday.
DiVincenzo spent last season in the rotation with the Golden State Warriors, where he averaged 9.4 points and played in 72 games, averaging 26 minutes.
DiVincenzo is a name well known to Delaware basketball fans. The 6-foot-4 guard and 2018 Delaware Athlete of the Year won back-to-back Delaware state titles with the Salesianum School in Wilmington back in 2014 and 2015 before moving to Villanova. There, coach Jay Wright jokingly called him “The Michael Jordan of Delaware.”
That nickname stuck, causing a whole lot of head-scratching among Milwaukee Bucks fans when DiVincenzo was drafted to that team as a first-round pick in 2018. He eventually won an NBA championship with the Bucks while on the injury roster in 2021.
Delaware rising star:DiVincenzo has Delaware beaming with pride
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DiVincenzo has since bounced around, going first to the Sacramento Kings and then the Warriors. He’ll reportedly now join former Villanova teammates Jalen Brunson and Josh Hart at the Knicks. Both came to the team in the past season, helping the beleaguered franchise win a playoff series for the first time in years.
Brunson and DiVincenzo won two NCAA championships together while teammates on the Villanova Wildcats. After the second of those games, DiVincenzo landed on the cover of Sports Illustrated when he scored more points than any non-starting player in NCAA championship history.Sports site The Athletic called this Villanova class reunion at the Knicks a match “scripted by the basketball gods,” noting that in DiVincenzo the Knicks would be getting “a shooter, ballhandler and high-energy defender.”
Matthew Korfhage is a Philadelphia-based reporter with USA Today Network.
