New Golden State Warriors guard Donte DiVincenzo attracts nicknames like Steph Curry attracts defenders as he runs across the three-point arc. In line with Basketball Reference, he’s formally generally known as “The Huge Ragu” and “White Chocolate.” Informally, he’s “White Donte,” and the prime topic of our dialogue at present, “The Michael Jordan of Delaware.”

“White Chocolate” is wasy, and likewise not his nickname! “White Chocolate” is Jason Williams, although it’s a tribute to DiVincenzo’s swagger and strikes that he anybody would name him that as nicely. Nonetheless, let’s see Donte begin throwing elbow passes earlier than we begin gifting away Williams’ nickname.

Whereas he was at Villanova, broadcaster Gus Johnson dubbed DiVincenzo “The Huge Ragu” after he tipped in a Josh Hart miss on the buzzer to beat Virginia.

Why The Huge Ragu? DiVincenzo speculated, “I assume it’s as a result of I’m an Italian with purple hair.” Nonetheless, it’s not what anybody calls Virtus Bologna star Nico Mannion, who will at greatest be The Little Ragu if he returns to the NBA.

“White Donte” is what Bomani Jones began calling DiVincenzo whereas watching him tear it up within the NCAA Match championship recreation in 2018. Jones defined:

“DiVincenzo comes within the recreation and the very first thing I discover is his identify is Donte and Donte has an ‘O.’ That’s not the way it’s spelled by the writer of the Inferno. Then I watched him play and that was undoubtedly a visible aesthetic of basketball that we sometimes affiliate with black basketball gamers.

“Donte with an ‘O,’ we’ve bought that dude with that recreation, then I watched the postgame celebration and watched him with the hat backward, cocked to the facet and simply the entire manner he kicked it and I used to be like, ‘Oh, we haven’t had an NBA participant that matches this aesthetic in fairly some time and I discover this to be extremely entertaining.’ Then it seems that he’s truly good.

Advertisement

“He killed it in that recreation, clearly, then he goes to the mix and places up these ridiculous athletic numbers after which he involves the league and it’s going nicely additionally. That is without delay an interesting piece of irony simply as a tool for communication, but additionally one factor I totally take pleasure in concerning the NBA is the cultural change. It’s all the time attention-grabbing to see individuals who kick it in ways in which appear to be apparently ironic and that is a type of instances.”

Which brings us to the Michael Jordan of Delaware. Now, Delaware will not be precisely New York Metropolis in relation to a wealthy historical past of basketball expertise. Walt Hazzard was on John Wood’s first championship UCLA crew in 1963-64, and gained a gold medal in that summer time’s Olympics. Charles “Tarzan” Cooper of Newark, Delaware is within the Corridor of Fame. Twin brothers Joey and Stephen Graham made it to the NBA, and Emanual Davis of Delaware State College performed six seasons. It’s legal that Terence Stansbury of Wilmington isn’t on Wikipedia’s “Record of individuals from Delaware. It’s just like the editors have by no means seen his Statute of Liberty 360 dunk.

Nevertheless it’s truly a sarcastic nickname. DiVincenzo’s faculty coach, Villanova’s Jay Wright, stated it sarcastically when completed wasn’t making sufficient effort in follow. Wright instructed a university journalist, “He stated I stated it to him facetiously in his freshman yr when he was performing like a famous person. I stated to him, ‘You act such as you’re the Michael Jordan of Delaware.’”

Wright promptly forgot he was the one who first stated it, and thought it was DiVincenzo’s precise nickname, from when he was successful two Delaware state titles. “I don’t bear in mind saying that. … So, then I believed that the gamers began repeating it. I believed they referred to as him that. So, I began saying it. That turned his identify,” Wright defined.

DiVincezo has an argument, however is he actually the Michael Jordan of Delaware? He does have two highschool titles, two faculty titles (plus a Most Excellent Participant award for the Closing 4), and an NBA title with the Milwaukee Bucks, however he’s nonetheless behind Elena Delle Donne. She’s gained two WNBA MVP awards, one with the Chicago Sky in 2015, and one with the Washington Mystics in 2019, the identical yr they gained the title. Delle Donne made six All-Star groups, gained Rookie of the Yr in 2013, and did all of it whereas battling Lyme illness.

Different prospects:

Joe Biden: Has reached the height of his sport of politics by successful the presidential election, and proving he wasn’t merely a Scottie Pippen to Barack Obama’s Jordan. He additionally defeated native robust man Corn Pop, the Invoice Laimbeer of Wilmington, Delaware.

Éleuthère Irénée du Pont de Nemour: He based the DuPont gunpowder firm in 1802, which led to the lengthy industrial dynasty of the ultra-rich du Pont household. He might have been the G.O.A.T. of black powder manufacturing. And what was Michael Jordan if not explosive?

Elisabeth Shue: She is on the very least the Michael Jordan of Babysitting Adventures.

Robert Ruliph Morgan Carpenter Jr.: Like Michael Jordan, Carpenter owned knowledgeable sports activities crew, the Philadelphia Phillies. And like Jordan’s Charlotte Hornets, they had been almost all the time horrible beneath his possession. From the time his household purchased the crew in 1943 to when he stepped down as crew president in 1972, they made the playoffs simply as soon as, in 1950, after they had been swept within the World Collection. Solely as soon as in these 30 years did the Phillies end as excessive as second within the Nationwide League, and even their division.

Decide Reinhold: The Michael Jordan of Fred Savage body-switching movies.

In the end, it’s Delle Donne, however DiVincenzo actually does win lots. Maybe if the Warriors season goes in addition to the crew hopes, he can completely earn the moniker of one other frequent champion. How does “The Steve Kerr of Delaware” sound?