EL SEGUNDO — The moment it became “real” for Spencer Dinwiddie – that the Los Angeles native and Taft High alum was playing for his hometown Lakers – came over the weekend when he and his 5-year-old son were touring the team’s El Segundo practice facility.
When Dinwiddie and his son, Elijah, walked up to Dinwiddie’s new locker, there were a pair of No. 26 Dinwiddie jerseys – an adult-sized one in the back for Dinwiddie and a child-sized one in front for Elijah.
“You know who that’s for?” Dinwiddie asked his son about the jersey in the front.
“You,” Elijah responded while pointing at his dad.
“For me? I can fit that?” Dinwiddie said back to his son, who realized a few seconds later that the jersey was for him before putting it on in front of Dinwiddie’s locker.
“It really hit home not so much when I saw the jersey in the locker but he had put it on and he was running down the corridor,” Dinwiddie said after his first practice with the Lakers on Monday. “And I was behind him and I was looking at ‘Dinwiddie 26’ and I was like, ‘Oh, damn.’ Like, ‘It’s real.’ And for your son to be the reason you feel like it’s real, that was a really special moment.”
As a free agent who was traded from Brooklyn to Toronto ahead of the trade deadline and waived by the Raptors late last week, Dinwiddie had “several” teams interested in him.
But the decision on who he was going to sign with came down to two teams – the Lakers and Dallas Mavericks, who Dinwiddie played for from February 2022 to February 2023.
“One of the things that was definitely on my radar was the fact that when [Lakers general manager] Rob [Pelinka] called, it was the first call,” Dinwiddie said. “And that matters. Looking at the team setup and the ability to possibly come in and make an impact and try to help the team win a championship. Being home. It’s a childhood dream come true. There’s a lot that goes into that but having a chance to help the team win and like I said, it’s just a special place.”
Dinwiddie provided a humorous analogy about his decision between the Lakers and Mavericks.
“I’ll give y’all something funny that I told my people because I’m fairly candid,” Dinwiddie said. “The two situations kinda felt like this, right? Let’s say you were a kid and you got your ass whooped by the bully. Dallas would’ve been like your momma being like, ‘It’s OK, baby. Don’t worry about it.’
“Lakers are like your dad: ‘Nah, you better go out there and fight till you win.’ And I just felt like that was what I needed at the time. I’m a big believer in kind of doing what you need to do at whatever time it is. That’s how I felt about it.”
With the Lakers at 28-26 entering back-to-back games against the Detroit Pistons (Tuesday) and Utah Jazz (Wednesday), Dinwiddie gave his perspective on the up-and-down season.
“Essentially you’re seeing a team that when everything is on the line, they can rise to a level that no other team can get to,” Dinwiddie said. “They won the In-Season Tournament, have played big-time basketball the past several years. Sometimes it’s hard to maintain that throughout a whole season but at the end of the day, they know how to win. That’s what you know.
“Every night they’re going to get somebody’s best shot just because of the name that’s on the front of the uniform and then obviously you have arguably the greatest player of all time [LeBron James] on the floor as well. So then a lot of people are going to give him, personally, their best shot as well.”
Dinwiddie will be available to play against the Pistons on Tuesday and Coach Darvin Ham, who spent Sunday going over video with the 6-foot-6 combo guard and teaching him the basic terminology the Lakers use, made it clear he will play him right away. Max Christie (right ankle), Gabe Vincent (left knee), Cam Reddish (left knee) and Jarred Vanderbilt (right foot) all remain out until after the All-Star break at least, according to the team.
“He’s going to acclimate himself really, really well, really soon,” Ham said. “Just told him, ‘Don’t worry about making mistakes.’ We’ll help talk him through it.”
There are many familiar faces on the Lakers for Dinwiddie. The 30-year-old has previously played with D’Angelo Russell, Taurean Prince, Rui Hachimura and Christian Wood during a 10-year career that has included stops in Detroit, Brooklyn, Washington, Dallas and now L.A.
Wood, a former teammate of Dinwiddie’s in Dallas, apparently wanted credit for Dinwiddie coming to the Lakers. But Dinwiddie made sure to set the record straight.
“How the hell we gonna give C-Wood the credit?” Dinwiddie quipped. “Look, C-Wood was impactful. I’m giving the credit to Bron.”
PISTONS AT LAKERS
When: Tuesday, 7:30 p.m.
Where: Crypto.com Arena
TV/radio: Spectrum SportsNet/710 AM
