Donte DiVincenzo
The scrappy Villanova guard who arrived in the 2024 Karl-Anthony Towns trade, started all 82 games as Minnesota's point guard, and tore his Achilles in the 2026 playoffs.
He was a central piece of the package that sent Karl-Anthony Towns to New York, and within two years he was the guy the Timberwolves could not replace.
| Vitals | |
|---|---|
| Born | January 31, 1997, Newark, Delaware |
| College | Villanova (three seasons, 2018 national champion) |
| Drafted | No. 17 overall, 2018 (Milwaukee) |
| Acquired | Karl-Anthony Towns trade, October 2024 (from the Knicks, with Julius Randle and Keita Bates-Diop) |
| Seasons as a Wolf | 2 (2024–present) |
| Number | 0 |
The arrival. When Minnesota shipped Karl-Anthony Towns to New York on the eve of the 2024-25 season, the headline coming back was Julius Randle. DiVincenzo was the other name — a 27-year-old combo guard with a championship ring and a reputation for playing bigger than his frame, tossed into a deal that reshaped the franchise overnight. He landed in a locker room that had just made a Western Conference Finals run and needed a two-way perimeter piece who would not blink. That is exactly what he was: a low-maintenance, high-contact guard who took charges, chased shooters over screens, and let it fly from deep without a hint of conscience.
The spark. DiVincenzo’s fit was immediate and physical. He averaged 11.7 points on 39.7 percent from three across 62 games in 2024-25, mostly off the bench, and turned into the kind of connective, pestering guard that deep playoff teams hoard. His shooting cooled badly early in the postseason, but Minnesota kept feeding him anyway, and the faith paid off. The Wolves dispatched the Warriors in five and returned to the Western Conference Finals for a second straight spring, falling to the eventual champion Thunder. DiVincenzo’s fingerprints were all over the run: loose balls, deflections, and the willingness to take the hardest defensive assignment on the floor.
The iron man. The 2025-26 season was his masterpiece of availability. With Mike Conley benched before the opener, DiVincenzo slid to point guard and started all 82 games. He posted 12.2 points, 4.1 rebounds and 3.8 assists while burying 244 threes on nearly eight attempts a night — the second-most three-pointers in a single season in franchise history. Edwards anchored the offense; DiVincenzo was its lubricant, spacing the floor, initiating in a pinch, and setting the tone for a defense that lived on ball pressure.
The rupture. Less than two minutes into Game 4 of the 2026 first-round series against Denver, DiVincenzo went down clutching his left leg with a torn Achilles tendon, season over, with a recovery timeline threatening most of the next one. Minnesota gutted out the Denver series without him, but his absence loomed large in the second round: Edwards drew constant double-teams, the perimeter offense thinned out, and the Wolves fell to San Antonio in six. A team that had spent a year leaning on his toughness suddenly had none of it.
By the numbers
Regular-season stats, per Basketball-Reference:
| Season | GP | PPG | RPG | APG | FG% | 3P% |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2024-25 | 62 | 11.7 | 3.7 | 3.6 | .422 | .397 |
| 2025-26 | 82 | 12.2 | 4.1 | 3.8 | .406 | .379 |
Wolves career totals
Franchise ranks
- 2nd Made threes, single season (244, 2025-26)
- 2nd Three-point attempts, single season (644, 2025-26)
Per the franchise single-season leaderboard.
Accolades
- NBA champion, 2021 (Milwaukee)
- NCAA champion & Final Four Most Outstanding Player, 2018 (Villanova)
- Started all 82 games, 2025-26
- Second-most made threes in a Timberwolves season (244)
Lore
The Big Ragu. The nickname trailed him from Villanova, coined by broadcaster Gus Johnson after a 2017 buzzer-beater, a nod to his Italian heritage and red hair, borrowed from a Laverne & Shirley character named Carmine Ragusa. It fit a player whose whole game is blue-collar defiance dressed up with a smooth jumper.
Villanova royalty. Before any of it, there was one of the great one-game breakouts in college basketball memory: 31 points off the bench in the 2018 national title game, earning Final Four Most Outstanding Player honors and instant folk-hero status. The Wolves acquired a guard who had already known, at 21, what it feels like to be the best player on the floor when everything is on the line.
The full 82. In a franchise long acquainted with attrition, availability is its own kind of heroism. DiVincenzo answered the bell for every single game of 2025-26, all 82 of them, moving to an unfamiliar position without complaint and shooting more threes than anyone in a Minnesota uniform not named Edwards ever had.
Refused to leave. Even after the Achilles tore and the surgery loomed, DiVincenzo stayed glued to the bench through the rest of the playoff run, in street clothes and on crutches, coaching up teammates from a folding chair. It was the same toughness he had shown on the floor, just pointed a different direction.
The trade brought back a starter and a champion. But it was DiVincenzo, the throw-in on the marquee, who turned into the piece Minnesota could least afford to lose.