NBA All-Star Weekend: Nets’ Spencer Dinwiddie wins skills contest

Brooklyn Nets guard Spencer Dinwiddie won the Taco Bell Skills Challenge, beating Chicago Bulls big man Lauri Markkanen in the final.

The NBA All-Star festivities are underway, and while Sunday night will host the game between Team LeBron and Team Steph, the individual players are getting the chance to shine on Saturday night.

First up was the Taco Bell Skills Challenge, pitting NBA stars against one another in a contest to test the entirety of a player’s skill set, including ball-handling, shooting and passing. The final came down to Brooklyn Nets guard Spencer Dinwiddie and Chicago Bulls big man Lauri Markkanen.

“Really just at the end, they were saying the bigs were going to win and Lauri had me cause he wasn’t going to miss his three so I knew I had to get out to a big lead,” Dinwiddie said.

Dinwiddie did get out to a quick start and sunk the first pass, whileMarkkanen missed. That allowed Dinwiddie to get a full-court lead coming into the final three-point shot. Dinwiddie missed his first three-pointer, clanking it off the front of the rim.

But Dinwiddie was able to sink his second shot before Markkanen ever caught up on the course.

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What might make this more impressive, is Dinwiddie was the literal long-shot to win according to CBS Sports. Anyone betting on Dinwiddie at +1300 got a huge return on their bet.

• Lou Williams +125
• Joel Embiid +300
• Lauri Markkanen +400
• Al Horford +480
• Buddy Hield +625
• Andre Drummond +700
• Jamal Murray +1050
• Spencer Dinwiddie +1300

And not only did Dinwiddie defy the odds to leave the All-Star Break with some hardware, he got to do it in front of his hometown crowd.

“It made me feel great to come back home and get a win, finally put on for the guards and get a kid a scholarship. I think that’s the best part of the whole thing.” Dinwiddie said.