Meet Quincy Diggs: FIBA's top-ranked American 3x3 player

Unless they’ve played in the NBA, there aren’t too many peopleon this planet who can say they’ve had the opportunity tocompetitively share the floor with the one and only LeBron James inthe prime of his career. Overseas professional Quincy Diggs is oneof the few who has.

Made him travel that's how good the defensewas pic.twitter.com/BI5cM24vFY

“That shot he made on me was a travel. I'mma live with thatuntil I'm dead,” Diggs told Basketball News over the phone of hispinned Twitter post. “That was a travel. I played great defense. Iplayed great defense on the GOAT. I’ll never forget thatvideo."

Diggs remembers how this moment came about. Going into hissecond season at the University of Akron in 2011, then-head coachKeith Dambrot invited his former Saint Vincent-Saint Mary star topractice with the team and stay conditioned, as the NBA was tryingto come up with a solution with the NBPA to end the league’slockout. LeBron practiced with the Zips for two weeks that summer,and on that particular day, bought Subway for the whole squad andhung out with the guys on campus.

“That was a pretty dope experience. We got to see how he'd takecare of his body — and to me, it makes sense why he's still playingthese days because we've seen how he takes care of his body; afterhe practices, he's in the ice baths and then he stretches for anhour, so it definitely makes sense for me why he's still playing,”Diggs said of LeBron, who is in his 20th NBA season and recentlypassed Kareem Abdul-Jabbar as the all-time leading scorer in NBAhistory.

“For him to be giving it back to us as well, teaching us thegame and giving his little tips and pointers on how to stayaggressive, read the offense and take your time, that was really atruly amazing experience.”

Twelve years later, living in Austria, Diggs proudly representsthe United States as FIBA’s top American men’s 3x3player on Team Vienna, the runner-up of the 2022 World TourFinals. Impressively enough, it was his first season playing inthis format professionally, and it all came about randomly. Whatstarted as a way to stay in shape over the summer worked out morepositively in his favor than he could’ve imagined.

“I didn't know anything about it, 3x3. I was new to it. I said,'Might as well try it out,' because I couldn't get a job at thetime. A friend (Nico Kaltenbrunner) invited me, I tried it out andthen, that led to becoming into a season. I didn't know 3x3 has aseason. So I did good in the (Eubone Challenger) tournament. Iended up going to Paris. And then, the team actually wanted me tostay on their team permanently. So I said, 'I got nothing else todo, I'm down to play,'" Diggs said.

“And so, we started racking in tournaments from all across theworld. We started getting points 'cause we were winning andsometimes coming in second. Eventually, I didn't know anythingabout points being ranked, and then, I got a message randomly froma guy. It said, 'Hey man, you're the No. 1 player in the USA.' Andthere's a lot of people that play from the USA in thesetournaments. Because we were winning and placing so high intournaments, I racked up so many points so quickly that I becamethe No. 1. So that was pretty cool to see and notice. I didn't knowanything about it, so it's pretty dope to be No. 1 in the UnitedStates (laughs)."

According to FIBA’s website, Diggs registered539,036 ranking points in 41 games played and is the 23rd-bestplayer in the world overall. On the World Tour, he led Team Viennawith 61 defensive rebounds and shot 67% on one-pointers.

None of this would’ve happened if it weren’t for Kaltenbrunner’soffer, and now, he’s reunited with former foes from his daysplaying in Oberwart with the Redwell Gunners in his firstprofessional season — Filip Kramer, Matthias Lenortner and Martin“Marmak” Trmal. Former No. 1 player in the 3x3 world StefanStojacic, known as “Mr. Robot,” came back from a serious kneeinjury and was in peak condition as well. Altogether, the five madeup a well-oiled machine.

With his guys flanking him, Diggs was able to pick up ahalf-court, three-on-three environment. However, it didn’t happenovernight.

“The 3-v-3 is far different from 5-v-5. The first thing Ilearned is you've gotta be in great shape because the ball isnonstop. You're nonstop defense. You're nonstop offense. The onlytime you get a break is when somebody calls a timeout,” Diggs said.“Me being a 5-v-5 player... You definitely get your rest basically,but it's nonstop. [With] 5-v-5, I'm more of a transition player. Ilove to get out and run. So it was hard for me to adjust at first,but then I started to get the hang of it.

“My teammates were helping me out — knowing the tricks, thestuff to do. Communication's important. It's three guys out theretrying to compete and you've gotta have a lot of communication outthere. So it's definitely an adjustment.”