Minnesota Timberwolves guard Donte DiVincenzo has picked up from where he left off last season where he had a career year with the New York Knicks. The 27-year-old has found his three-point range in Minnesota in no time, burying seven of his 13 attempts during three preseason games with the Timberwolves.
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DDV, who improved at a high clip right through his NCAA days with the Villanova Wildcats, has now become one of the most lethal corner three-point shooters in the league.
This improvement is a bit unforeseen as he wasn’t among the elite prospects at high school (Salesianum) and had a lukewarm start to his college career. An injury forced him to redshirt after just nine games in his freshman year. Donte’s stats didn’t jump off the stat sheet either as he averaged just 1.7 points during 8.2 minutes of play.
Despite his subpar play and the injury, Villanova’s scouting team believed DiVincenzo had the potential to grow into a shooting guard who could log in the heavy minutes. They asked him to emulate the then Oklahoma Sooner senior guard, Buddy Hield’s, shooting consistency from beyond the arc. Hield was by far the best shooting guard in NCAA Division I during the 2015-16 season.
While his Wildcats would go on to win the 2016 NCAA Championship, Donte didn’t become complacent. His motivation to become a threat from distance was as fiery as ever. After a full second year in the NCAA, he was showing signs of becoming an elite long-range option.
DiVincenzo increased his scoring average from 8.8 points per game in his second year to 13.4 PPG in his final college year. He nailed 2.1 triples a game on 40.1% shooting in his final year compared to 1.2 three pointers per game during his second year on 36.5% shooting.
The guard would also show a similar tendency to improve after entering the NBA. In 2018, he fell under-the-radar as the Milwaukee Bucks selected him with the #17th pick. It was a terrific decision as he was a key piece during the 2021 championship, but he was still a work-in-progress by then.
DDV has been a consistent performer despite playing for five different teams in two years but he was hovering around just 9-10 PPG before the last season. During the 2023-24 campaign with the Knicks, he finally had a breakout year after pouring in a career-high 15.5 PPG.
For the first time, he’d convert more than 3 triples a game, as he connected on 3.5 triples a game on an excellent 40.1% shooting from deep. He’d finish third with 283 triples in total, finishing with one less than second-place Luka Doncic and 74 fewer than first-placed Stephen Curry.
DDV’s three-point frequency of 70.1% was the highest among players who made the ten most three-pointers last season. The corner three played a vital role in his unprecedented ascension.
Donte DiVincenzo has become unstoppable from the corner
DiVincenzo is a pure catch-and-shoot three-point threat. What makes him difficult to guard is his incredibly fast release. Last season, he made the most threes with a touch time of 0-2 seconds, pouring in 3 triples per game, amassing a total of league-best 253 triples. A quick release implies that he doesn’t need to dribble the ball for his long-range heroics, akin to Klay Thompson.
During the 2023-24 Regular Season, he made 3 triples per game off 0 dribbles, nailing 240 triples for the top spot. Naturally, his catch-and-shoot skills make him one of the biggest threats in the league from the corner.
During the 2023-24 Regular Season, he made 1.1 corner threes per game on an excellent 46% shooting. Thus, 30.3% of his makes from the three-point line were from the corner
In terms of total threes from the corner, he made 86, finishing second behind Malik Beasley who made 105 on a brilliant 46.7% shooting. DiVincenzo showed massive improvements compared to the 2022-23 Regular Season, when he finished 54th with 39 total corner threes on an inferior 42.9% shooting.
A majority of DDV’s corner threes came from left side as he converted 0.6 triples per game on 41% shooting. He nailed 44 total triples from the left-corner, finishing just behind Grayson Allen and Norman Powell.
However, he was much more efficient from right-corner, making 0.5 triples per game on highly impressive 51% shooting. He converted 42 triples on the right-corner, finishing just behind Beasley, Herbert Jones, and Mikal Bridges.
What makes him a lethal corner shooter is his ability to get free quickly for an open shot. He can nail the long-ball using curl actions and also by using a subtle step-back to generate rhythm. However, the biggest issue for the defenses is his offensive awareness on stationary shots.
He uses minimalistic movement to get an open look from the corner and by the time defender catches up to him, the shot is already up. Even if a defender catches up to him on time, he can nail the contested shot in the most composed manner.
Last season, he also had the luxury of playing alongside Julius Randle, who is terrific at getting in around the low-post and can easily feed a short pass in the corner. He will also play alongside Randle with the Timberwolves so the corner three-point option will be open to him on numerous occasions.
But DDV is more than just a corner threat. He is equally adept at nailing the above-the-break three-point that is the single biggest threat from long-range in the NBA right now. Last season, he was tenth in the league with 196 total threes from that range.
But on average, he used the corner three more than the anyone who finished among the top-five in total three-pointers. That is largely because of his tendency to use 0 dribbles to make his shot.
With Anthony Edwards, Julius Randle, and Rudy Gobert occupying wreaking havoc in the paint, he will have many opportunities to bother defenses with his catch-and-shoot abilities for the Timberwolves.
He has been on fire during the preseason leg and may nail close to 300 triples again during the Regular Season.
