Donte DiVincenzo said the tension between himself and the New York Knicks matches the jersey number he wore during his lone season in Manhattan: zero.

DiVincenzo planned to visit Madison Square Garden as a visitor for the first time in more than a year when the Minnesota Timberwolves visit for a preseason game, and set the record straight about his big-city departure to Stefan Bondy of the New York Post. The shooter dismissed rumors of dissatisfaction with his role in New York as “completely untrue.”

“There were no angry feelings, no crazy feelings, nothing like that,” DiVincenzo told Bondy. “It was an initial, ‘Damn, I got traded,’ and you move on to the next thing. It was all love.”

Along with Julius Randle, DiVincenzo was sent to Minnesota as one of the headliners in the trade that acquired Karl-Anthony Towns. This partially ended the “Nova Knicks” era, in which four former Villanova Wildcats (all of whom participated in the 2016 national championship under Jay Wright) would have been on the metropolis’ roster.

Post-trade gossip claimed that DiVincenzo was looking for a way out after the Knicks acquired Bridges, as the move would likely return “The Big Ragu” to the bench. DiVincenzo took over the Knicks’ top shooting guard duties in December and set both a career high in scoring (15.5 points per game) and the franchise’s single-season record for most three-pointers (283).

The Villanova alum said conversations about his role with the Knicks from 2024-2025 were never discussed, leaving him with nothing to potentially be upset about. He even noted that there’s no guarantee he’ll start in Minneapolis, as incumbents Mike Conley, Anthony Edwards and Jaden McDaniels could all be prioritized.

In fact, DiVincenzo welcomed Bridges for reasons far beyond their Wildcat heritage.

“It was never a matter of, ‘Oh, we’ve got Mikal, I’m (checked off) out.’ I was super excited,” DiVincenzo told Bondy “Get the Villanova out, I was super excited because we got a really good player back on the team.”

“You get OG (Anunoby) back, now you’re looking at, ‘Wow, we’re going to be really good.’ There was never a conversation about my role being reduced. There was never a role about my minutes being reduced. It was the outside assumption and went along with it, and it wasn’t true.

DiVincenzo will now be part of another title chase, one as the Timberwolves look to capitalize on last year’s highly anticipated trip to the Western Conference Finals. He naturally maintains a strong friendship with his fellow former Cats, as they were part of a revamped GQ feature centering on a foursome who won’t be sharing a professional minute together, at least not anytime soon.

“It’s not strange. We are friends outside of basketball,” DiVincenzo said. “It’s not like we just became friends in basketball and that’s the only thing we have in terms of friendship.”

“Those are my brothers. We could do the shoot whether we all play for four different teams or the same team. I think the timing of it was kind of funny. But that doesn’t change the relationship or anything.”

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