Let’s all thank Steve Kerr and his whiny punchable face for taking Donte’s shooting to new heights. This isnt a fluke. He legit leveled up.
https://www.nbcsportsbayarea.com/nba/golden-state-warriors/the-secret-change-behind-divincenzos-best-shooting-season/1467590/?amp=1Though he doesn't want to be boxed in as a "shooter" for his ability to do many other important skills on the court as a ballhandler, passer, rebounder and defender, DiVincenzo from his toes to his nose can be another freeze frame of what an elite shooter's form should be. And that's what he has turned into this season: An elite shooter from deep, giving the Warriors yet another option for teams to fear.
The message was clear from the start: Take my advice or don't, either way, I trust you as a shooter. After an offseason of zeroing in on his lower half, Kerr had noticed the one area of DiVincenzo's shot that could use a tiny tweak: Hand placement.
Naturally, DiVincenzo's hand would pronate inwards every once in a while. Even the smallest movement of an elbow moving out can make the biggest difference. Kerr had DiVincenzo focus on keeping his right shooting hand straight and widening his fingers a bit, allowing everything from his shoulders to his elbows to his fingers to stay straight without feeling locked up.
Using a neon green tennis ball, DiVincenzo demonstrates to me how he wants the ball to feel in his hand and coming off of it every time. The end goal is poetry in flight, with his index and middle fingers making the magic happen.
"For me, it's right around that air hole -- right in the center of the ball," DiVincenzo explains. "That's where I put that first finger. For me, sometimes my hand was a little to the left of the ball. As soon as I turn that, everything is straight now. Everything kind of changes together.
"So you bring your elbow in and instead of being wedged up, you bring that hand over here and now everything is straight. And that's why every time I get on the court now I do form shooting and everything for the repetition of just feeling it, feeling it locked in."
When asked about his words of advice, Kerr first tried to deflect. He wanted the context laid out. DiVincenzo was enjoying the best season of his career when he first became a starter for the Milwaukee Bucks in 2020-21. In his third season as a pro, DiVincenzo shot what was then a career-high 37.9 percent on 3-pointers and the Bucks went on to win the championship.
But DiVincenzo watched from the sidelines. A bad ankle injury in the first round of the playoffs ended his season short and kept him out for the first 34 games of the season. He shot a lowly 28.4 percent from three in 17 games with the Bucks last season, and 36.8 percent from long range in 25 games with the Kings after being traded and feeling closer to himself health-wise.
The Warriors knew DiVincenzo had it in him. Kerr doesn't want credit. What worked for him, though, has worked wonders for DiVincenzo.
"I rarely say anything to our players about their shot, but it's something that really helped me in my career as a shooter," Kerr said to NBC Sports Bay Area. "It was just widening out the fingers on the ball, changing the ball placement on the ball so the ball is coming off more on the two middle fingers.
"Now you widen the handle of it, now you can control the ball a little bit more with these two fingers. That was just something I noticed. His hand was really narrow on the ball."
Immediately after DiVincenzo and Kerr's conversation, DiVincenzo hit the practice court with Warriors development coach Kris Weems. The two weren't moving around the court or anything. The point was to make the feeling of the ball coming off DiVincenzo's first two fingers with a wider grip as natural as possible.
Months later, he admits it was difficult at first. Once he started connecting, DiVincenzo noticed right away that the feeling was the same as when everything was going right in the past. Only this time, he could repeat the action over and over again from drills to practice and then games.
Freedom was the hope. So was the result.
"I wanted him to play free and just get back to being himself," Kerr said. "That's what's happened. It's just a very minor, easy little technical fix."
Playing 72 games in his first season as a Warrior, DiVincenzo made 150 3-pointers this season, the best of his five-year career. He shot 39.7 percent behind the 3-point line on 5.3 attempts per game, both being career highs. In his final three games of the regular season, DiVincenzo rolled into the playoffs going 10 of 19 on 3-pointers, good for 52.6 percent.
