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Spencer Dinwiddie’s parallel ascension with the Brooklyn Nets

By Alec Liebsch

Photo by Noah Graham/NBAE via Getty Images
Photo by Noah Graham/NBAE via Getty Images /
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Spencer Dinwiddie’s winning of the NBA Skills Challenge on Saturday Night wasn’t exactly life-changing, but it does provide some perspective on how far he and the Brooklyn Nets have come.

The Brooklyn Nets have come a long way. Four years removed from executing the worst trade in NBA history, the current team looks completely different from that one.

One of the pioneers of the new era in Brooklyn, most notably, is a man by the name of Spencer Dinwiddie.

Dinwiddie is a cult hero. A soldier. The ultimate rags-to-riches poster boy. Dinwiddie did not get a great start to his NBA career. He had to work his you-know-what off just to get looks.

He played quite well in college. The University of Colorado was a fun place for him to grow and gain notoriety around the country. His averages of 14.7 points (on 51.5 percent shooting), 3.8 assists and 1.5 steals per game in his junior season were notable to NBA scouts. His enormous 6’6″ size for a point guard was also crucial.

But then, a knee injury derailed the remainder of his final college campaign. His physical tools and high I.Q. (he allegedly scored a 1,400/1,600 on the SATs) were significant, but he became a mystery following the injury.

As a result, he dropped to the second round of the draft — specifically, to the Detroit Pistons and their “accredited” general manager, Stan Van Gundy. What better place to stagnate a young guy’s career than with a coach who has a psychological fear of player development?

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    • Dinwiddie had to immediately scrap for minutes, and fight to keep the few ones he got. One missed shot, one bad decision, and he’d be out of the rotation.

    That’s exactly what happened. Van Gundy got impatient, and shipped him to the Chicago Bulls following his second season with Detroit. Then, the Bulls threw him aside before the season even began.

    This is where the Nets made their move. Along with many fliers Brooklyn has taken, Dinwiddie was just looking for some breathing room. Guys like him needed some freedom to develop and fully experience the NBA.

    From the moment Dinwiddie signed in December of 2016, his impact on the team was tangible. Point guard is often considered the most important offensive position on the floor, so getting a competent one is crucial. For a roster deprived of much offensive firepower at all, a spark like Dinwiddie literally made the offense boom.

    He has made the Nets fun again with savvy playmaking and a fearlessness in crunch time. The artistic license delegated to him by head coach Kenny Atkinson has not been taken lightly. Dinwiddie has spread his impact to a point where even non-Nets fans know his name. He has run with it, and so have the Nets.

    As a result of his gargantuan impact, the NBA invited him to play in the 2018 Skills Challenge on Saturday as a part of All-Star Weekend. No average player gets to participate in an event like this.

    Like everything else Dinwiddie has been given, he ran with it. He wasted no time, and literally ran through the entire competition. The result was a dub that shocked the NBA world.

    No one gave Dinwiddie a chance. Nor does anyone give the Nets a chance. And that’s exactly how they like it.

    Parallel plots

    Although the Nets have filled the current roster with young assets, it’s important to remember where they were as a franchise just a two and a half years ago. The asset cupboard was empty. Until they traded Thaddeus Young in the summer of 2016, their “building blocks” consisted of…Rondae Hollis-Jefferson.

    Now in winter of 2018, they have: Jarrett Allen, Allen Crabbe, Dinwiddie, RHJ, Caris LeVert, Jahlil Okafor, D’Angelo Russell, Nik Stauskas, Isaiah Whitehead and a normal allocation of first round picks starting in 2019. On top of this stockpile is the flexibility to obtain more pieces; once they deal with cap holds in the summer of 2018, Brooklyn will have approximately $15 million in salary cap space.

    Like winning the Skills Challenge, simply saying you’ve collected an asset isn’t impressive in a vacuum. But pile it on top of the existing resume, and the aggregate ascension becomes noteworthy for all parties involved.

    Next: 2018 NBA Draft - The best team for each top prospect

    For both Dinwiddie and the Nets as a whole, the fun is just getting started. Stay a while, will ya?

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