B. Patrick
As a basketball fan, I have always had a love for the lesser known, obscure and/or underappreciated. At school, when most kids were wearing Penny Hardaway, Shaquille O’Neal or Michael Jordan jerseys, I was wearing Bobby Hurley, Derek Harper and Dino Radja.
This is my open tribute to the lesser known players in today’s game. This is Spotted on the Pine.
DIONTE CHRISTMAS
Name: Dionte Christmas
Team: Free Agent
Jersey Number: 22 (college)
Rookie Year: 2009-10
Drafted: Undrafted
College: Temple
Twitter: @DChristmas22
I am not going to open with a Christmas in July line. No need to give anyone more reason to hunt me down and punch me in the face.
No, it just happens to be a coincidence the second article in July is Dionte Christmas, who while being the second Dionte/Diante featured (see the inaugural Spotted on the Pine on Suns guard Diante Garrett – http://culturecrossfire.com/sports/basketball/spotted-on-the-pine-diante-garrett/#.Ud4XT3bn_IU), Mr. Christmas is the first player featured not currently on a roster.
Why?
It is Summer League season in the NBA. While a bunch of talented players look to hone their game and get attention across the basketball community in Orlando and Las Vegas, it is a perfect time for me to showcase another contingent of some under-recognized players.
Which brings us back to Dionte Christmas. In July.
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Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
Not a bad place for an athlete. Dionte Christmas knows all too well. Born in Philly, leading the city in scoring high school, Dionte stayed close for colleg when he earned a spot with the Temple Owls.
In 2005-06, Christmas made his debut with the Owls but mainly in a reserve capacity on the team led by future New York Knick Mardy Collins.
During his sophomore season, Christmas got noticed when he not only emerged but led the entire Atlantic 10 in scoring. An increase in playing time saw his PPG average jump from 3.5 to 20.0. The sudden boom would earn Dionte Most Improved Player of the Conference.
While the Owls struggled that season, Dionte turned up the intensity to keep his play at a high level and pull his team up with him for his junior season. By leading the conference in scoring again, Christmas became only the third player in conference history to lead the conference in scoring during back-to-back campaigns. Dionte scored 19.7 PPG and earned All-Conference honors.
The Owls would make a major turning around, winning the Atlantic 10 tournament and getting automatic entry in the 2008 NCAA Tournament. Dionte earned Most Outstanding Player honors for the Conference tournament and while Temple would lose in the Round of 64 to Michigan State, the experience would come in handy for the Dionte’s Senior Season.
Christmas was getting recognized around the league. A preseason All-American, Dionte was in talks for the Wooden Award, among other prestigious honors. If all of this talk didn’t get enough spotlight on Christmas, December would.
No, this isn’t another way to get a Christmas joke in.
On December 13, 2008, the Owls would be matched up against the #8 ranked Tennessee Volunteers for an ESPN matchup. Dionte would drop 35 points on the unsuspecting Vols and lead the Owls to one of the biggest upsets of the season.
Christmas would become the first player to lead the Atlantic 10 in scoring in three consecutive seasons en route to becoming the fourth all-time leading scorer in Temple history with 2,043 points, only 566 points off of Mark Macon’s school-leading 2,609 and several hundred ahead of other Temple stars that went on to pro fame in the NBA, such as Aaron McKie. Not too bad for the limited Freshman play.
Garnering comparisons to Michael Redd, it seemed like Christmas should get a look going into the 2009 NBA draft but he didn’t.
It didn’t take long for Dionte’s hometown Philadelphia 76ers to pick him up for their Orlando Summer League team. After playing for the Sixers, he joined the Los Angeles Clippers to play with #1 overall pick Blake Griffin in the Las Vegas Summer League. Blake would win the MVP but get injured in the preseason and miss his true rookie season.
Dionte on the other hand, got a call back from Philadelphia to join their team for training camp and played with the 76ers through the pre-season. On October 21st, shortly before the start of the season, Philly would stop the momentum of their hometown pickup and cut him before the season started.
But that wouldn’t stop Christmas.
He went over to Israel and joined Hapoel Afula. From Israel, he was back for the 2010 NBA Summer League with the Sacramento Kings.
He didn’t catch on with the Kings, so he made a stop in the Czech basketball league in February 2011, before going the Greek league with PAOK. Now, some of the Greek clubs have fairly solid reputations. Like Olympiakos. So Dionte went there and did what he did best: score. Like this video of Dionte dropping 41 points against Olympiakos.
Christmas was catching attention in Greece and would spend the bulk of the next season with Rythymno BC.
In April 2012, the NBA would come calling again, as the Houston Rockets showed interest in Christmas and he joined the team.
And never got on the court.
Instant offense cannot become instant offense if it isn’t allowed off the bench.
That didn’t stop Christmas. He would join the Celtics for their Summer League circuit in 2012 and caught the attention of many. Despite already having and acquiring several guards in need of big minutes (Rondo, Bradley, Terry, Lee), the Celtics had to recognize the amazing work of Christmas and brought him to training camp.
Kevin Garnett took a liking to him. He nicknamed him Temple. He proved he could score on an NBA level but the Celtics had a ton of guards and gave the final roster spot to Kris Joseph, an under-rated player that fit more of the Celtics positional needs at the time.
So Dionte went to Russia and played with CSKA Moscow and Monttepaschi Siena of Italy, where he helped the club win an Italian championship.
And he keeps coming back for more.
We enter Summer League 2013 and Dionte Christmas is still working the Summer Circuit to get that one chance he needs.
As the Orlando Summer League opened up in Florida recently, Dionte joined the roster of the Utah Jazz. Utah looks pretty likely to have some roster spots open for guards this offseason with the departure of Randy Foye and the likely departure of Mo Williams. It could be a solid landing spot for Dionte and he is showing them they could use him. Dionte is scoring in ways that are showing to the American basketball crowd why he led the Greek league in scoring in 2012.
After Orlando wraps up, Dionte will be joining up with the Phoenix Suns in Vegas. While new Suns head coach Jeff Hornacek actually coaching the Vegas squad himself presents an interesting opportunity for Christmas to work very directly with the coach, there may not be as good of a chance for Dionte to land with the Suns.
Not that he doesn’t have the talent to be on the Suns roster, following one of the worst seasons in franchise history.
As of June 30th, the Suns had 14 guaranteed contracts going into the Summer League and unless the Suns make some roster moves, he will have interesting competition for the final spot.
In the summer league, Dionte will play side by side with Diante (Garrett, mentioned above), an underutilized member of last year’s squad who has been in Phoenix working out with the team and looking to earn a contract.
Wesley Johnson, the Suns starting two-guard for the final stretch of last season is also a free agent and the Suns will probably want to take another look at the former 4th overall pick out of Syracuse.
Dionte is a fighter though. If the Jazz don’t take a full look, someone will have to. Even in their current situation, he will make sure the Suns will have a long hard decision.
Dionte Christmas will pop up somewhere and when he does, be prepared to see scoring in bunches.
