Donte DiVincenzo Had Words For The Knicks Bench In A Spicy Moment During His Return To New York

The Minnesota Timberwolves were in New York on Sunday night for a preseason game with the Knicks, and in any other year that would not be a big deal. This year, however, that meant a lot of reunions as the two teams were playing each other two weeks after the stunning trade that sent Karl-Anthony Towns to New York and Donte DiVincenzo and Julius Randle to Minnesota.

While all of the players involved have talked about the emotions of the trade and how they’ve worked through them and are now focused on moving forward with their new teams, it was pretty clear that the wounds are still a bit open in their first meeting with their old teams. It’s not an issue between players and their former teammates, but there’s still some sore feelings when it comes to the front offices and coaches that gave the green light to trade some key contributors.

Donte DiVincenzo showed exactly what I’m talking about when he went to the line for some early free throws, and seemed to have some words for Tom Thibodeau and the Knicks Bench that court mics picked up.

Initially a clip of the ESPN feed sounded like he said “thank you for the trade,” but he was saying “can’t finish, right Thibs?” with Thibodeau standing off by the scorer’s table while DiVincenzo was taking his free throws. DiVincenzo then turned his attention to the Knicks bench and Rick Brunson, saying “this is what happens when you run the show.” This is a little more spice than you usually see in a preseason game, but that’ll happen when you have two teams playing each other for the first time after a big trade.

DiVincenzo was a critical player for the Knicks in their run to the conference semis a year ago, and as Cassidy Hubbarth was noting in her report while Donte was talking to Thibs and the Knicks bench, he was pretty hurt by the trade. New York is taking a gamble by breaking up their Nova crew to bring in Towns, stripping away a bit of their depth in hopes that, when at full strength, their ceiling will be higher with the All-Star big man.

UPDATE: After the game Brunson had another exchange with Knicks assistant Rick Brunson (also the father of Jalen Brunson) and the two had to be separated as clearly emotions were high in DiVincenzo’s return to the Garden.

DiVincenzo then told reporters, per Stefan Bondy, that he was joking with Thibs but not with Rick Brunson and that tension was indeed very real.