2024-25 Mavericks Player Cards: Spencer Dinwiddie

Dinwiddie is back, but the Mavericks aren’t the same anymore

Photo by Mike Stobe/Getty Images

This is a story about a California kid whose parents split, so he moved to Texas to live with his mom. He had the best time of his life in Dallas, but then mom found a new boyfriend and sent him off to Brooklyn. Upset, the kid chose his dad at the first opportunity and moved back to Los Angeles. Only to realize that a father’s love could be tough at times, prompting both the kid and his mom to reconcile and give it another shot.

Forgive my imagination, but I couldn’t resist after re-watching hilarious Dinwiddie's explanation from last February, where he compared the situation to parents' handling of a bully as an analogy for why he chose the Lakers over the Mavericks.

Anyway, the 6-foot-5 combo guard is back in Dallas, looking to find his place again on a deep Mavericks team. But before we dig into the role he might play in his second stint, let me bring up another one of Dinwiddie’s analogies that explains why things didn't work out in LA and sheds some light on his expectations in Dallas. Dinwiddie described his situation with the Lakers as being in a "Reggie Bullock role but getting graded on a Spencer scale."

The role was essentially to step aside and make room for the Lakers' playmakers, play defense, and hit the corner three if left open. Playing alongside LeBron James, Austin Reaves, and D'Angelo Russell, Dinwiddie had a career-low usage rate of 13 percent (for comparison, his usage in Dallas was in the 24-25 percent range), rarely getting the chance to create off the dribble and exploit mismatches in isolation, as he was so used to during his year with the Mavericks. In the same interview, Dinwiddie claimed he can still score 30 points if you gave him 20 attempts, but I don't think he'll be getting those anymore in Dallas.

The Mavericks are not the same team he left a year and a half ago; they now go 12 or 13 players deep with a stacked guard rotation. Six, maybe even seven, guards will be fighting for 96 backcourt minutes, and the battle for the third ball-handler off the bench will be one of the more interesting ones in training camp.

I don't envision him being asked to play a Bullock role; Jason Kidd knows well that his off-the-dribble skills are too valuable for a team that will need them. But with Klay Thompson, Dante Exum, and Jaden Hardy in the mix, there might be nights where there’s no role, and no minutes.

2023-24 key stats: 76 games played, 52 games started | 28.3 minutes, 10.5 points, 2.7 rebounds, 4.7 assists per game | 39.7 percent field goal (Note: These are Dinwiddie’s combined 2023-24 stats with the Nets and Lakers).

Projected role in 2023-24: Third ball handler off the bench. See early August rotation analysis for more details.