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Time to shine: Spencer Dinwiddie will get his moment with the Mavs this season
After years of being overlooked and injured, the Mavericks guard will have the opportunity to start and lead.
By Myah Taylor / Dallas Morning News

Spencer Dinwiddie still thinks about high school.

As a student at William Howard Taft in Los Angeles, the Dallas Mavericks guard had the grades to eventually get an offer to play at Harvard, probably to the delight of his USC professor mother.

But, man, was he small.

At 5-7 and 117 pounds, a freshman Dinwiddie realized he was no longer on the neighborhood basketball court. This was LA, one of the premiere hubs for top recruits, but he didn?t let that discourage him. Dinwiddie would need that mindset years later as he accumulated DNPs with the Detroit Pistons, despite being healthy during his stint there.

?I wasn?t hurt, they just thought I wasn?t good enough,? the guard said last month at Mavericks media day.

Long before Dinwiddie arrived in Dallas, he has been on a quest for recognition. No one doubts the 29-year-old?s intelligence (he started investing in bitcoin in 2017, before it was cool) but throughout his career, questions about his on-court abilities have been prevalent.

As Dinwiddie steps into a starting role this season with the departure of Jalen Brunson, he carries his experiences of being overlooked and injured. He doesn?t see this stint with the Mavericks as a revival of his career per se, but it is a big step for a guy who, when no one else would, had to remind himself that he belonged.

?Just stick with it. Somebody?s going to see,? he recently said during teammate Theo Pinson?s ?Run Your Race? podcast while recalling what his LA friends would tell him. ?There?s going to be something that breaks for you.?

By his senior year at Taft, Dinwiddie grew to become a 6-4, 165-pound prospect ranked 146th overall in the class of 2011. The three-star recruit was not a McDonald?s All-American or a blue blood magnet, but he was recruited by UCLA and other Pac-12 programs. Dinwiddie chose to prove he was an NBA-caliber player at Colorado.

?It came down to Pac-12 ? or Harvard,? Dinwiddie said on the podcast. " ? I was like, ?Oh guys, don?t worry. I figured out this level. It?s going to take me about a year-and-a-half to figure out this [next] level. Then, I?m going to the NBA in two years.?

After his first few games as a Buffalo, coaches pulled Dinwiddie aside to discuss his poor play. They wouldn?t bench him because he was their guy, as Dinwiddie predicted, but they did need him to improve.

He did, playing his way to a Pac-12 All-Freshman Team honor. If not for his parents? urging, he would have left Boulder after his sophomore season, but he stayed one more year only to tear his ACL in January 2014. The Pistons still called that spring and selected him 38th in the second round of the 2014 NBA draft.

Dinwiddie rode the bench in Detroit all the way to the G League, where he lasted 10 games before the Brooklyn Nets picked him up in December 2016. It was in Brooklyn where he met and befriended Pinson and played the most minutes of his career up to that point.

Kevin Durant, Kyrie Irving and DeAndre Jordan joined the Nets during the 2019 offseason. Durant was injured, but other new additions changed the lineup and placed Dinwiddie into a reserve role, until Irving injured his shoulder. The Nets were the sixth seed in the playoffs that season, even with Irving and Durant out.

?That?s definitely the year I feel like I should have made the All-Star team for sure,? Dinwiddie said. ?I was averaging 21 and 7.?

The pandemic came in March 2020 and Dinwiddie tested positive for COVID-19 that June. That December, he capped off a turbulent year with another ACL tear in a game that would be his last as a Net. Dinwiddie joined the Washington Wizards in August 2021 before coming to Dallas in February as part of the Kristaps Porzingis trade.

He still thinks about how when he arrived, as Mavericks head coach Jason Kidd told the team to give him the ball if Luka Doncic and Jalen Brunson weren?t playing. Dinwiddie starred during the Mavericks? playoff run last season, scoring 30 points in Game 7 against the Phoenix Suns to help the team advance to the Western Conference finals.

And that was coming back off a second ACL injury.

?Spencer?s a great player,? Mavericks center Dwight Powell said during a media session earlier in training camp. " ? To be able to come back from an injury like his, the way he did, the speed he came back, that speaks volumes. And then on top of that, his ability to perform at the highest level in the moments where we needed him the most ? I don?t know if everybody really recognized how difficult the things he did last year were.?

Doncic, who scored 35 points in that Game 7 against Phoenix, is the guy, but Dinwiddie?s happy to co-pilot with him. Similar to last season, he will be the lead facilitator whenever Doncic is not on the court.

This year, Dinwiddie will also be in the starting five alongside the superstar. He will sub out earlier than Doncic in the first quarter, as Brunson did last season. Then, Dinwiddie will start in the second quarter to lead the second unit as Doncic rests for a few minutes.

?Right now, we are looking at Spencer running that [second)] group,? Kidd said on Oct. 8. ?I thought he did a good job with that group yesterday, being able to set the table for those guys.?

It?s a new era for Dinwiddie. He wouldn?t say his career was dead, but he did need reassurance.

?My road in life has not been easy in terms of relationships, basketball ? all that,? Dinwiddie said. ?... Coming to a locker room [where] everybody accepted me ? Sometimes, you need to hear that.?