What does Spencer Dinwiddie's partial ACL tear mean for him and the Brooklyn Nets?
A strong start to Brooklyn's 2020-21 campaign was marred Sunday when Dinwiddie suffered a partial tear of his right ACL, which will require surgery. The timing is tough for Dinwiddie, who'd established himself as the Nets' starting shooting guard ahead of a player option for 2021-22.
It's also bad news for Brooklyn, which must replace Dinwiddie and faces a more complicated decision on a possible trade for an All-Star like Bradley Beal or James Harden.
Let's consider the many implications of Dinwiddie's untimely injury.
Nets must remake starting lineup
New Brooklyn head coach Steve Nash made the decision to start Dinwiddie at shooting guard next to All-Star point guard Kyrie Irving to begin the abbreviated preseason and had no reason to change course early in the season. Through Sunday, the Nets' starting five with Dinwiddie and Irving in the backcourt, Joe Harris and Kevin Durant at forward and DeAndre Jordan at center had outscored opponents by a league-best 32 points in 43 minutes of action, per NBA Advanced Stats.
On paper, Dinwiddie was a somewhat surprising choice. Although he started 49 games last season, most of those came in place of the injured Irving at point guard. The two ballhandlers started just five games together, during which Brooklyn went 1-4. Because he's a below-average 3-point shooter (32% career), Dinwiddie has typically been most effective with the ball in his hands.
Despite that shortcoming, Nash praised Dinwiddie's ability to play alongside Irving and Durant.
"He gives us a lot of versatility," Nash told reporters during the preseason. "There's a lot of gaps around Kevin and Ky, and he can fill a number of them. Whether he's creating plays for them or whether he's spotting up, whether he's taking on defensive assignments, it's a joy to have a player like that, with that much talent and versatility, in our lineup."
Now, Nash will have to rebuild the starting five. We'll find out how committed Nash is to the idea of keeping Caris LeVert in a sixth-man role, which the first-year coach compared to how Manu Ginobili came off the bench for multiple San Antonio Spurs championship teams. Using LeVert as the primary scorer on bench-heavy units has allowed Nash to play Durant and Irving together as much as possible. (Irving has played less than a minute by himself, while all of Durant's minutes have come with Irving.)
The good news is Nash has plenty of options besides LeVert to replace Dinwiddie from the Nets' deep bench. Besides LeVert, Landry Shamet has been the team's top guard off the bench, and he started 30 games last season for the LA Clippers. Shamet is off to a poor shooting start, missing all nine shot attempts Sunday and going 2-of-16 from the field over three games, but has a strong track record as a 3-point marksman (40% career).
Brooklyn could add more size to the starting five by promoting Taurean Prince, who started 61 of 64 games for the Nets last season. Or Nash could keep the second unit intact by elevating one of the team's two defensive specialists, guard Bruce Brown and wing Timothe Luwawu-Cabarrot, who have played sparingly thus far. Brown, too, has extensive starting experience -- 99 of his 134 games for the Detroit Pistons the last two seasons -- while Luwawu-Cabarrot made the most of his opportunity Sunday, staying on the court the entire fourth quarter and scoring 11 points as Brooklyn's comeback effort fell short in the team's first loss of 2020-21 at Charlotte.
As many options as the Nets have, none of them are as complete players as Dinwiddie. They're also notably not point guards, though LeVert has been serving as a point guard with the second unit. That could force Nash deeper into his bench if and when Irving, who was limited to 20 games last season by a shoulder impingement that required season-ending surgery, misses time. Brooklyn does have options there in Tyler Johnson and two-way player Chris Chiozza, who ran the point for the Nets in the 2020 playoffs after Dinwiddie opted out of the restart.
According to my ESPN colleague Malika Andrews, Dinwiddie hasn't yet been ruled out for the season. However, a return from ACL surgery so quickly would be unprecedented in recent NBA history. No player has returned from an ACL tear in fewer than 11 months since J.J. Hickson in 2014. That includes Tony Wroten of the Philadelphia 76ers, also diagnosed with a partial tear in 2015. The other reported partial ACL tear in recent memory, Rajon Rondo with the Boston Celtics in 2013, kept him out nearly a full year.
Dinwiddie's player option TBD
There's never really a good time for an ACL tear, but Dinwiddie has had particularly poor timing. He suffered an ACL tear in the other knee during his junior season at Colorado and was still rehabbing when he entered the 2014 draft, helping push him to the second round. Now Dinwiddie won't have a full season to prove his worth before deciding on his $12.3 million player option for 2021-22.
Prior to the injury, Dinwiddie seemed like a lock to decline the option and test free agency. At 28, a healthy Dinwiddie would be one of the top players on the market.
Given how much money will be available next summer and how the crop of potential free agents has been thinned by a series of extensions this year, I still think free agency will be Dinwiddie's best choice. But that's no longer a sure thing, and Dinwiddie may need to demonstrate to potential suitors that his rehab is going well if he's unable to return this season.
Complicated trade choices for Brooklyn
The timing of Dinwiddie's injury also presents an issue for the Nets as they consider possible trades to consolidate their roster. Along with LeVert, Dinwiddie was an obvious candidate to be included in the package for a star guard because of the possibility he might leave as an unrestricted free agent next summer.
The first challenge here is deciding whether such a trade makes sense. Brooklyn won't get a full look at a starting unit that played well to begin the season and must make any decisions before the deadline on incomplete information about how good this core might have been.
Second, Dinwiddie's trade value is limited now. Given his potential free agency, Dinwiddie would have been most valuable to teams that could have taken advantage of his modest current salary for a starting-caliber point guard. With Dinwiddie likely out for the season, that salary likely becomes dead money. It's still possible a team over the cap might want to acquire Dinwiddie in order to secure his Bird rights to re-sign him next summer, but that's no sure thing.
Because they have multiple reasonable contracts and all their draft picks going forward, the Nets are still well positioned to put together a compelling trade package for Harden (if and when both sides decide to make a deal) or Beal (if he becomes available). However, the Nets might be compelled to give up more picks than they would have needed to had a healthy Dinwiddie been part of the return.