Pat Spencer is one of the greatest college lacrosse players ever. Now he’s trying to make the Golden State Warriors.
Pro basketball talent arrives from everywhere now. International players — Giannis! Luke! Nicholas! — are some of the biggest names in the NBA. You have late bloomers who play four seasons of college, can’t miss sensations who leave for the draft lottery after one year, and some who skip it altogether, heading to overseas clubs or into a developmental program like the NBA’s G League.
Pat Spencer is trying to make the NBA from a more unusual place:
Lacrosse.
Not long ago, Spencer was one of the best lacrosse players in the country. The Maryland native was a big deal at Loyola University in Baltimore — a locally raised attacker who helped lead the Greyhounds to a Final Four and other successes. Spencer remains the NCAA’s all-time lacrosse assists leader, and in 2019, he won the Tewaaraton Award — basically the lacrosse Heisman, as the country’s leading Division I player.
With a graduate year of eligibility, Spencer took the bold step of transferring to Northwestern to play a season of college basketball, a sport he hadn’t competed in since high school. He wound up starting 29 of 31 games for the Wildcats, scoring 10.4 points and averaging close to four assists per game.
“We were taking a flyer, of course” says Northwestern’s coach, Chris Collins. “For him to be away from basketball for four years, come in and do it at the Big Ten level — it was remarkable.”
Spencer is far more humble about his transition to the hard court.
“I played like crap, to be honest,” the 26-year-old tells me. “I got away with it because I was athletic enough, and I had a high enough IQ that I could mask it, but I couldn’t shoot. My body wasn’t there yet. I had a lot of work to do.”
Since then, Spencer’s been putting in the work, trying to make it to the game’s highest level. He played a brief stint of pro ball in Hamburg, Germany. From there he went to the Capital City Go-Go, the G League team affiliated with the Washington Wizards. He began honing his shot into a far more reliable weapon.
“I feel great about where I am now,” he says. “But it took a lot of time.”
Now Spencer is on the West Coast, playing for the Santa Cruz Warriors, Golden State’s G League franchise. He made a good impression during a pre-season run with the parent club, throwing down a ferocious dunk against the Portland Trail Blazers that drew a delighted reaction from the Warriors’ franchise superstar, Steph Curry.
“We loved what we saw from Pat in the pre-season,” says Golden State general manager Bob Myers. “He brings out the best in his teammates with the standard he sets, in terms of playing hard, and playing the right way.”
For Spencer, the shift from lacrosse to basketball is less complicated than it may appear. While playing both sports in high school at Boys Latin in Baltimore, he found them easily compatible. “They’re very similar,” he says. “The spacing, the picks, the objectives — I think they both helped me, one with the other.” (Spencer’s not the only talented hooper in his family — his younger brother, Cam, is at Rutgers averaging 13.1 points per game.)
Spencer’s lacrosse coach at Loyola, Charley Toomey, agrees with the parallels between lacrosse and basketball, saying both sports capitalized on Spencer’s package of skills and vision.
“Pat was as good going right-handed as he was left-handed,” Toomey says. “He loved to draw double teams, and his ability was to see through a defense.” Toomey says Spencer was so unselfish, coaches had to insist he keep the ball for himself and score more goals.
Spencer, of course, wouldn’t be the first lacrosse star to transition to another pro sport. The NFL Hall of Famer and Syracuse lax legend Jim Brown is still regarded as one of the greatest lacrosse players ever. Wayne Gretzky played lacrosse. Maryland Terrapins lax star Jared Bernhardt is a wide receiver for the Atlanta Falcons. A former Wesleyan lacrosse captain named William Belichick has made a career in NFL coaching.
Spencer was a bit of a late bloomer in lacrosse as well. Undersized early in high school, he didn’t play varsity until his junior year at Boys Latin, a habitual lax hotbed stacked with gifted players. A growth spurt would continue into college — the G League now lists Spencer at 6-foot-3, 205 pounds, which is actually smaller than what he finished in college lacrosse.
“I’ve slimmed down for sure,” he says. “I was used to playing lacrosse a bit heavier because I used that physicality quite a bit. But [in basketball] I need to be able to guard at a high, high level — and these guys are quicker, faster, smaller.”
Toomey, the Loyola coach, marvels at Spencer’s transformation. “Pat’s a whole other beast now,” he says.
An NBA career isn’t guaranteed for Spencer — he’s old for a prospect, and the Warriors roster is already stockpiled with young talent backing up veterans like Curry, Klay Thompson and Draymond Green.
Then again, the defending champions pride themselves on elevating players from unconventional backgrounds. Their Santa Cruz team has been a launch pad for players like Jordan Poole (who recently signed a Warriors deal worth more than $120 million), as well as a training ground for younger draft picks like James Wiseman. (“Love James,” says Spencer. “Quiet, hard worker, wants to be great.”) After missing a string of early-season games with a hip injury, Spencer’s back playing in the G, scoring 13 points with four assists versus Mexico City on Sunday.
Spencer’s biggest edge? That lacrosse unselfishness. He specializes in the type of ball-movement, look-for-the-open-man style that is Golden State’s signature.
“I love that he’s a lacrosse guy,” Warriors coach Steve Kerr said during Spencer’s pre-season run. “I think sports like soccer, hockey and lacrosse establish a vision you need in basketball.”
“We enjoy players who have played multiple sports,” says Myers. “Usually those people have a creativity or a persistence about them.”
Collins, Spencer’s Northwestern coach, thinks he’s in the perfect spot. “I know those guys at the Warriors really well,” he says. “Knowing what Pat brings — his daily work ethic, fire and drive — it falls in line with everything they look for.”
As for lacrosse, Spencer continues to follow the game, especially Loyola. He has been impressed by the rise of the Premier Lacrosse League, the pro league founded by Rabil, the ex-Johns Hopkins legend and Spencer’s friend. “It’s been cool to watch,” Spencer says.
Toomey, an assistant with the US national team, says Spencer’s name would still be on “any coach’s list” when putting together a lacrosse roster.
But Spencer plays one sport now.
“The goal,” Pat Spencer says, “is the NBA.”
-The Wall Street Journal
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