Former Detroit Pistons: Where is Spencer Dinwiddie now?

Spencer Dinwiddie was drafted by the Detroit Pistons in 2014, and after a few years he found himself in a new home. Where is he now?

With the 38th pick in the 2014 NBA draft, the Detroit Pistons selected Spencer Dinwiddie, the prospect out of the University of Colorado spent two seasons with the team, bouncing around from the main roster and the Grand Rapids Drive team.

During the 2016 offseason, the team traded him to the Chicago Bulls for Cameron Bairstow, who Detroit cut a month later.

Looking at Dinwiddie’s career now, it’s hard to not get perturbed that he was traded for someone who was later cut. But that’s looking at things through the skewed, hindsight perspective. Now, Dinwiddie is one of the more improved players over the last few seasons.

Since signing with the Brooklyn Nets in 2016, Dinwiddie’s points per game average has gone up four points each season: 7.3, 12.6, 16.8, and currently at 21. He’s averaging a near career-high 6.6 assists this season as well. He’s 41.7% from the field and 30.1% from beyond the arc.

The Spencer Dinwiddie of the Detroit Pistons is a completely different player. In his 46 games with the team, the 26-year-old Dinwiddie averaged a whopping 4.4 points per game on shooting splits of .314/.173/.746.

Dinwiddie was the first draft pick that Stan Van Gundy made in his dual role as coach and president of basketball operations. It was also Van Gundy that elected to trade the future All-Star. In an interview after a practice in January of 2018, Van Gundy stated he had no second thoughts on the trade that sent Dinwiddie to Chicago.

"“We let him go and then Chicago let him go. You can go around the league and find a number of guys like that. They’ve been let go a few times. Did we make a mistake? Did Chicago make a mistake? Did getting cut change his approach?“You don’t have the answers to that, but a lot of it goes on.”"

Dinwiddie was stuck in a log jam at the guard position during his time with Detroit. He often sat on the bench behind Reggie Jackson, Brandon Jennings, and veteran Steve Blake. Ultimately, there weren’t enough minutes to go around, and even when there were, Dinwiddie didn’t necessarily wow those in charge.

That being said, when you aren’t consistently getting minutes and building chemistry on the court, that can have an effect on making the most of an opportunity. In his first season with the Nets, Dinwiddie played more than twice as many minutes as he did during his two seasons with the Pistons.

In his four seasons in Brooklyn, he’s averaging 14.2 points per game alongside 5.3 assists.

He was in contention for Most Improved Player last season and got some buzz this season about being an All-Star reserve but didn’t get the nod.

With Kyrie Irving and Caris LeVert (and Kevin Durant) missing significant time this season, Dinwiddie took the reigns and kept the team in playoff contention alongside Joe Harris and Taurean Prince.

Whether it be a Piston’s front office whiff or working effortlessly to improve his game, Dinwiddie has made a lot of teams regret not taking a chance on him.