Since D’Angelo Russell’s injury, Spencer Dinwiddie has stepped into his role as starting point guard of the Brooklyn Nets. The Nets haven’t shown any crazy improvement, but their grit has increased tremendously. Dinwiddie has led the charge for the team, inspiring them in spirit and talent.
Dinwiddie’s 2017–18 overall stats don’t exactly jump off the screen. With 13 points and 6.5 assists per game, he is nowhere near the leaderboards in any major category. When he starts, the Nets aren’t even appreciably better, with a 12 to 22 record when he’s on the court for the jump. However, Dinwiddie’s impact cannot be accurately measured by standard statistics. When the advanced stats are delved into, it is obvious that he is not only one of the more valuable point guards in the Association, but one of the more valuable players, period.
The foremost statistic in which Dinwiddie excels is the Assist to Turnover ratio. This is one of the more important stats in the league, as ball protection and distribution are two of the best skills for a point guard to have. Dinwiddie is currently averaging more than 4.5 assists per each turnover he commits—he leads the NBA in this respect. In comparison, noted passing maestros Chris Paul and Rajon Rondo each average just over 3.6 assists for each turnover, and LeBron James gets only 2 assists per turnover. Dinwiddie’s excellence with the ball helps all his teammates, as he is able to effortlessly create for every player on the court.
His lack of turnovers consistently keeps the Nets in the game, which fuels his next great stat: on-off plus/minus. This statistic measures the Nets’ point differential when he is on the court against when he is off. When he is on the court, the Nets are nothing special, but they are respectable—they manage to outscore their opponents by about half a point per 100 possessions. However, they are outscored by more than 8 points per 100 when Dinwiddie sits, which may admittedly be more of an indictment of the rest of the Nets’ poor talent. Nonetheless, this is indicative of Dinwiddie’s impact at the very least, which is backed up by yet more statistics.
However, the stat that Dinwiddie really shines in is Real Plus Minus, or RPM. This stat, calculated by ESPN, is meant to measure the true net contribution by each player to his team. It is generally regarded as a good general metric for how much a player adds or subtracts from his team given that many others factor in team wins, meaning that poor talent surrounding good players detracts from their overall value. Dinwiddie, while not astonishing in the box score, ranks an impressive eighteenth in RPM out of over 450 listed players. This is above such stars as Kevin Durant, Kyrie Irving, and Paul George. Now, I would not claim that Dinwiddie is better than Durant and Irving, and he is likely not better than George either, but his impact on the game cannot be ignored. He has improved his game significantly from his release from the Bulls to today, and it shows.
As Russell begins to return to a major role on the Nets and the trade deadline approaches, Dinwiddie is a potential target for many teams because of his performance, something that would never have been thought by even him just months ago. He has a polished and complete game, and has been a high-quality point guard option that has kept the Brooklyn Nets afloat despite their many injuries. As his NBA career progresses, keep an eye on Spencer Dinwiddie. He is already a special player, and is only getting better.