Former lacrosse star Pat Spencer carving out an unexpected NBA career with Golden State

Pat Spencer is no stranger to high-stakes, playoff action … although the Golden State Warriors guard derives his most extensive postseason experience from his four-year tenure with the Loyola University Maryland men’s lacrosse program from 2016 to 2019.

Now, with two-time league MVP Stephen Curry sidelined for at least a week by a hamstring injury, Spencer steps into an elevated backcourt role in the Warriors’ Western Conference semifinal series against the Timberwolves. He played 13 minutes in the Wolves’ 117-93 victory Thursday but didn’t score.

“It’s a next-man-up thing,” Spencer said Thursday morning at the Warriors’ Game 2 shootaround. “We’re bummed like crazy for [Curry], but you don’t really have time to think about it in the playoffs. We gotta lock in. We have a really good group of guys, a closer in Jimmy [Butler] that we feel confident about. It’s gonna be a group effort, but we like where we’re at.”

While he’s far from his old stomping grounds at Baltimore’s Ridley Athletic Complex, Spencer said he lives for these high-pressure moments.

“I just love competing, [whether] it’s cornhole, pingpong, you name it,” the 28-year-old said. “I grew up in a household with two brothers, and we competed for everything. This is nothing new, just the environment is a bit heightened.”

Spencer, who began his professional basketball career in Europe with the Hamburg (Germany) Towers before playing for the Wizards and Warriors G-League affiliates from 2021 to 2024, had previously appeared primed for long-term superstar status on the lacrosse field.

He amassed an NCAA Division I record 231 assists, leading the Greyhounds to four consecutive NCAA tournament appearances, including a Final Four trip in 2016. As a senior, Spencer won the Tewaaraton Award as the nation’s outstanding college player.

But Spencer said basketball was his first love and that he sees many transferable skills between the two sports.

“The spacing is very similar,” Spencer said. “Obviously, the physicality — I like to put my shoulders down and get after it. [I’m] grittier than most guys out here, and I hang my hat on being a high-IQ guy in both sports.”

The Premier Lacrosse League’s No. 1 overall selection in 2019, Spencer opted to forgo a professional lacrosse career. He’d filled highlight tapes off flying finishes and remarkable feeds in the lacrosse scene, but Spencer sought a new challenge.

With one season of eligibility in his hip pocket, Spencer transferred to Northwestern, where he took a graduate year with the basketball program and averaged 10.4 points, 4.1 rebounds and 3.9 assists per game during the 2019-20 season.

“I wouldn’t be where I am today without those guys,” Spencer said. “I needed to play in the Big Ten, on that kind of platform. That year was tough as hell for me as far as losing, but I just learned so much about what I needed to do to impact my body, my game to get to this level.”

After college, he worked his way through the bushes as an undersized 6-3 guard, impressing folks with his competitiveness and eventually getting a two-way contract with Golden State.

He played in 39 games during the regular season, and with Curry out in Game 1, Spencer was on the floor for 11 minutes.

Donning No. 61, Spencer is among the first to admit that his jersey sticks out like a sore thumb. He deemed his digits an “offensive lineman’s number,” though the sum of six and one pays an homage to Spencer’s old lacrosse digs at No. 7.

Spencer’s jersey number was the subject of Warriors forward Draymond Green’s postgame quips following the visitors’ 99-88 Game 1 victory, but Green also warned that Spencer shouldn’t be overlooked.

Green said Spencer is a “good basketball player. He really don’t look like it. I don’t think the No. 61 helps him, but he is one of the toughest guys on the team.”

Six years after hanging up his lacrosse stick, Spencer said he’s exactly where he’d envisioned he’d be.

“I knew it was going to be a long journey, and it has been,” Spencer said. “It’s been fun, rewarding, demanding, everything I could have asked for. I love lacrosse, don’t get me wrong, but I had dreams of doing this even while I was playing lacrosse.”