Yesterday, Shams Charania announced on X that the Golden State Warriors signed former Northwestern point guard Pat Spencer to a contract for the rest of the season. This means his previous two-way contract has been converted into a standard NBA deal for the remainder of the year.
Spencer is a fantastic story. He started his college sports career as a lacrosse player at Loyola (Md.) before coming to Evanston to play basketball. After playing for the 'Cats, he's managed to carve out a real role with the Warriors in the highest level of basketball on earth.
The eye test will tell you he's an anomaly -- he looks like exactly the kind of college player analysts routinely write off as "not built for the NBA." At 6-foot-2, he is a touch undersized, but he's made it work.
This is his third season getting playing time with Golden State, and he's going to appear in more games than any season of his career barring an injury. He played in 39 last year, not counting the playoffs, and he's already appeared in 37 games this season.
Right now, he's averaging 14.8 minutes per game and six points per contest. Those are both the highest totals of his career -- he averaged 2.5 points in around six minutes last year.
At 29-years-old, Spencer just continues to ascend. This new contract is proof of that ascension, as one of the league's best franchises in recent memory has taken notice and decided to make him a full-time fixture in its rotation.
Sure, this isn't a Golden State team of the dynasty era necessarily, but Spencer is still getting playing time alongside legends like Stephen Curry and Draymond Green. It's tremendously impressive for a guy who started out as a lacrosse player in college.
He's proven every doubter wrong up until this point, and he's now being afforded the opportunity to continue doing that without worrying about losing his roster spot. If the Warriors make the postseason, expect to see Spencer get some time on the court as well. He played in the playoffs last year as a result of injuries, but he may not need that to happen this year.
With Northwestern, Spencer played in 31 games during the 2019-20 season. He averaged 10.4 points per game, four assists and four rebounds. As a guard, he made his impact felt in a multitude of ways. Now, he's continuing to have that impact in the NBA.