Spurs’ White all about toughness as a defender.
Bumps, bruises and chipped incisors aren’t keeping guard from playing defense
If Jakob Poeltl had known what he had done, he might have extended an apology.
Or at least offered to pay Derrick White’s latest dental bill.
Poeltl didn’t see White briefly leave the Spurs’ loss against the L.A. Clippers on Thursday, just as he didn’t see part of his teammate’s front tooth laying on the AT&T Center court for athletic trainer Will Sevening to retrieve.
The 7-foot center certainly didn’t realize it was his errant forearm that had knocked White’s fang loose.
“I didn’t even notice,” Poeltl said. “He told me after the game.”
To be fair, the moment barely registered with White either.
The fourth-year guard has become accustomed to going through teeth the way most people go through dirty socks. “Another day, another chipped
tooth,” White said. “It’s like the fifth or sixth time I’ve done it in my life.”
With a penchant for putting his face in harm’s way, White has perhaps squandered any chance of starting a modeling career after his NBA days are done. As an NBA guard, he makes a pretty good NHL defenseman.
The Spurs wouldn’t have it any other way.
“He’s a tough guy,” point guard Dejounte Murray said. “I’ve played with some dogs. I’ve played with some dudes. He’s up there.”
Of course, the Spurs don’t get points for White’s bumps and bruises.
His toughness translates on the court in myriad ways.
Heading into Monday’s game against Sacramento, White has drawn 45 charges in 171 career NBA games. He is tied with Patty Mills for the team high with five this season, despite appearing in 23 fewer contests.
With a few more favorable whistles from the officials that number could be higher, White believes.
“I’ve tried for a lot more than that,” he said with a laugh. “It’s just standing in there and taking the hit and helping the team get the stop.”
The 6-foot-4 White ranks as one of the NBA’S top shot-blocking guards. His average of 1.1 per game is second on the Spurs behind Poeltl.
His 2.3 deflections per game are also second on the team after Murray.
“He makes plays on defense everywhere on the court,” Poeltl said. “He gets blocks, gets strips, leads us in charges. All these types of hustle plays, making a play out of nothing when it seems like they have an easy basket. “That’s Derrick for us.”
It is a role White can sink what is left of his teeth into.
White’s most recent drawn charge came late in Saturday’s 120-104 slump-busting victory over Chicago.
The game appeared in hand with a little more than two minutes remaining, even as the Spurs had frittered away much of a 36-point cushion.
With the Spurs ahead 115-102, White slid in front of a driving Javonte Green to absorb an offensive foul.the impact sent White sprawling on his backside.
Given White had already taken a shot in the chops from Tomas Satoransky earlier in the game, self-preservation would have been an understandable instinct.
The thought of ducking for cover at the end of a blowout never crossed his mind.
“That’s just how I play,” White said. “Whatever it takes to get a stop or get a win.”
That White could not bring himself to take a dive, even with the outcome of the game decided, told coach Gregg Popovich something about the 26-year-old’s mental makeup.
“He’s a competitive individual,” Popovich said.
Such competitiveness can at times prove hazardous to White’s health, as well as his good looks.
He finished last season in the Orlando, Fla., bubble playing on a left foot that would eventually require surgery on the second toe.
Rehabilitation from that August procedure caused White to miss all of training camp and the first four games of the 2020-21 regular season.
He returned for one game, then fractured the same toe. That injury sent him back to the shelf for 14 more games.
A positive COVID-19 test sidelined White for five more contests in late February and early March.
Then there are the injuries more cosmetic in nature. White suffered a gash over his right eye playing for Team USA in the FIBA World Championships last summer that required four stitches to close.
White’s dental records, meanwhile, are growing longer than a CVS receipt. He might not ever be able to eat corn on the cob again.
“I’ve got to figure something else,” White said. “Maybe a mouthpiece or something.”
The incisor White chipped Wednesday, when Poeltl inadvertently whacked him on a defensive possession, is the same one he busted in a game against Memphis last August in Orlando.
That incident led to an emergency dental procedure White calls “the creepiest thing I’ve ever done.”
Under NBA coronavirus protocols in Orlando, players could not easily return to the league’s sanitized Walt Disney World complex if they left it.
Instead, a dental surgeon came to White. The dentist repaired White’s chipped tooth in truck parked outside the team hotel.
White was a bit concerned he was about to become an unwitting participant in an episode of “Dateline.”
“You get in that truck, you don’t know where you are going to end up,” White said.
White’s latest chipped tooth was repaired in a more conventional fashion in a dental office in San Antonio.
By Saturday, he was all smiles. The fact the Spurs were able to stop a four-game losing streak by beating the Bulls helped with that.
White had 16 points and seven assists in the victory, while converting 4 of 10 3-point tries.
In a heartening turn of events, White also went home with a full set of 32 teeth intact.
If White does need to return to the dentist any time soon, he believes his next tooth repair should come free of charge.
“I should have a punch card or something,” White said.