Former Villanova Wildcat Donte DiVincenzo is making his way into New York Knicks history.
DiVincenzo earned an metropolitan statistical landmark in the Knicks’ 98-74 win over the Orlando Magic on Friday night: With the last of three 3-pointers (on 10 attempts), DiVincenzo became just the fourth man in franchise history to successfully score at least 200 triple-pointers in a single campaign.
With 19 games left in the regular season log and sinking more than three per game, DiVincenzo is on pace to surpass Evan Fournier’s 241 from the 2021-22 season and set a new franchise single-season mark. Injured teammate Julius Randle is the current runner-up (218 last season) just ahead of John Starks (217 in 1994-95). The DiVincenzo 200 is also good for the third-most conversions in the NBA with an extra point on the line, behind only Luka Doncic and former teammate/all-time three-point king Stephen Curry.
Even if DiVincenzo somehow loses Fournier’s record by the end of this season, he will have plenty of opportunities to dethrone the current Detroit Piston ahead of him: Strong partnership with Curry in Golden State led the Knicks to offer him a four-year contract . , $46 million contract, which seems like a steal considering the undeniable impact he has left on the Knicks’ instantaneous and cumulative record books.
DiVincenzo began this season on the bench, but commandeered the team’s primary shooting guard role from the departed Quentin Grimes in mid-December. Since his promotion, DiVincenzo has averaged 16.9 points on just under 46% from the field, as well as 3.7 rebounds and 1.4 steals.
“He came into the season shooting really well. He got off to a great start and I thought that was a reflection of the work he put in over the summer. He started running and didn’t stop,” Knicks coach Tom Thibodeau told February, according to Newsday’s Steve Popper. “He’s really grown during this stretch. This is probably his best stretch of basketball and he’s doing it on both sides of the ball.”