‘This guy is living the dream’: Donte DiVincenzo’s high school coaches didn’t see this coming but they’re enjoying it

Donte DiVincenzo has morphed into one of the NBA’s best shooters over the last two seasons, but on Tuesday night, in a pivotal second-round Game 5, with the banged-up New York Knicks hosting Indiana, DiVincenzo went 0-for-6 from three-point range. It was the second time this postseason and just the fifth time in 2023-24 that DiVincenzo, a northern Delaware native, was held without a made triple.

It didn’t matter. The Knicks won by 30, and DiVincenzo did all the other things. He grabbed seven rebounds and dished out four assists. He swiped away three steals. And when his Villanova teammate and burgeoning NBA star Jalen Brunson missed a three late in the third quarter, the 6-foot-4 DiVincenzo soared for a putback dunk to bump the Knicks’ lead to 22.

On more than one occasion, the Madison Square Garden crowd chanted “DI-VIN-CENZO,” and back home in Delaware Brendan Haley was smiling.

“You just keep shaking your head,” said Haley, DiVincenzo’s former coach at Wilmington’s Salesianum School. “This guy is living the dream.”

The head shaking comes because Haley — as he has said publicly a few times since DiVincenzo burst onto the national scene after lifting Villanova to the 2018 national title and moving on to the NBA — never saw this coming. Few could have. DiVincenzo was a confident player; a talented one, too. But this? Scoring 16 points per game and shooting at a 40% clip in the postseason and being a big reason his team is a win away from reaching the Eastern Conference finals?

“It’s just a constant,” Haley said. “He seems to outdo himself every couple of weeks.”

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Team Final’s AAU program typically features the best players in the general Philadelphia area. New Castle County, Del., where DiVincenzo is from, is certainly in the Philly metro area, but as far as heralded basketball players from the First State? It’s a place to find a “diamond in the rough,” Team Final coach Aaron Burt said.

So when DiVincenzo first joined the program for the spring and summer before his junior year of high school, he was placed on the “B” team, not on the 16-and-under Nike EYBL team that competed at the highest level.

DiVincenzo, Burt said, needed to show he could play at that level with consistency. He had to prove that he belonged.

“He showed it,” Burt said. “The B team was almost as good as our regular EYBL team and it was because of Donte DiVincenzo.”

One of the things Burt remembers most about the redheaded, baby-faced DiVincenzo when he first joined the 17-and-under EYBL team was that he “was a kid.”

Meaning?

“He had a different best friend on the team each week,” Burt said. “One week it was Shizz Alston, the next week it was Malachi Richardson, next week it’s Trey Lowe, then the following week it’s Fresh Kimble. He was just a kid, a great teammate fitting in, but he was the kid of the group.

“He was a guy that would just have fun. He just embodied what a teammate is because he was kind of the glue that kept all of those guys focused, locked in, together, and positive.”

It’s easy to see that playing out now in the NBA playoffs with the Knicks, who signed DiVincenzo, 27, to a four-year, $50 million contract after he proved his worth and shooting skills on a short-term deal with the Warriors. He’s back with his Villanova guys, and with Brunson and Josh Hart the ‘Nova Knicks have gone viral. But DiVincenzo’s development doesn’t appear to be a flash in the pan.

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Like Haley, Burt said he didn’t see this happening when DiVincenzo was a 17-year-old playing on the AAU circuit.

“No one could say they saw this,” Burt said. “You saw his potential of being a great player. His confidence was so through the roof and he was so determined to be an NBA player. You kind of saw it after his freshman year at Villanova that he was kind of on that path.”

He sometimes got ahead of that path, Haley said. The player and coach — Haley is no longer the Salesianum coach, but still teaches math at the school — didn’t butt heads often, but there was a point during DiVincenzo’s senior year when a slight problem developed. DiVincenzo was so ready to move on to the next stage in his life that he even talked to Haley about finishing high school early to get to Villanova’s campus.

“I had to explain to him, credit-wise, that’s just not going to work,” Haley said.

Villanova coach Jay Wright came to a practice once, and during a conversation with Haley and DiVincenzo he reminded his incoming recruit to just focus on each day.

Salesianum was 10-10 at one point during that senior season. Wright once said that Sallies team was “not a good team at all.” But a refocused DiVincenzo changed everything. Something clicked, Haley said. DiVincenzo started to realize during the state tournament that any game could be his final high school game. He talked about making memories with his teammates.

DiVincenzo led Salesianum to its second straight state title.

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There’s a reason Wright dubbed DiVincenzo “the Michael Jordan of Delaware” years ago. Brunson during his high school days in Illinois was Wright’s only comparison to the “prowess” that DiVincenzo had in Delaware. Not many NBA players come from the state, although DiVincenzo, Jalen Duren, and Nah’Shon “Bones” Hyland would make up part of a scrappy starting five right now.

DiVincenzo’s games in Salesianum’s gym on North Broom Street in Wilmington were must-see during his high school years. Word of mouth about DiVincenzo started early. A gym that was normally filled with mostly-white faces became diverse. Everyone wanted to see the redhead who had funnily enough attended Salesianum not to play basketball, but to become a soccer star.

That state championship run was a perfect way for DiVincenzo, whose No. 5 is now retired at Salesianum, to go out. It featured a quarterfinal game that Haley and others still marvel at. Salesianum was facing an 18-3 Appoquinimink team that seemed destined to make a deep run. But DiVincenzo exploded for 34 points in a 61-55 win.

Last week, Haley watched as DiVincenzo scored 35 points on 7-for-11 shooting from deep in a Game 3 loss to the Pacers. He texted a former assistant coach. That effort had entered into the top three performances of DiVincenzo’s career. No. 1 will always be that quarterfinal game vs. Appo, Haley joked, and No. 2 was the 2018 national title game when DiVincenzo came off the bench to score 31 points as Villanova blew by Michigan. Thirty-five points in a playoff game was good for No. 3, though.

DiVincenzo, a new father, doesn’t get home as much as he used to. And he doesn’t talk as frequently with Haley, Burt, or even Wright, who once called him a bad texter. (“He’s not bad, he’s terrible,” Burt said.) Life has gotten increasingly busier. But Haley, former Salesianum coach Mike Gallagher, the school’s president, and two alums arranged — with the help of DiVincenzo’s father, John — a trip to Madison Square Garden to see DiVincenzo play in person in January. They sat about 10 rows behind the bench and then spent some time with DiVincenzo after the game.

Haley and the crew provided the former Salesianum star with a swag bag — since DiVincenzo left, the school has gotten some better Nike gear — and earlier this month, DiVincenzo wore a Salesianum quarter-zip during a press conference following a playoff game.

It was another cool moment for Haley, who has had plenty of them watching his former pupil rise from off-the-bench college star to rotation piece to more. DiVincenzo’s shooting stats this season had him in the company of names like Curry and Dončić. And now he’s on his way to being a playoff hero in New York.

The Knicks-76ers series, though, was torture for Haley, a Sixers fan. He wanted his hometown team to win, but he was conflicted.

DiVincenzo missed the first of those two three-pointers at the end of Game 2. Haley was happy because the series was about to be tied at 1-1. But then the ball found DiVincenzo again after a Knicks offensive rebound.

“I thought, ‘Come on man, drain it,’” Haley said.

He did. A winning shot against his hometown team to complete a wild comeback in a playoff game at the Garden. Living the dream, indeed.