Gorgui Dieng
Gorgui Dieng spent the first six and a half seasons of his NBA career with one of the most dysfunctional franchises in recent history. Now 30-years-old and only having played in five playoff games, the Louisville product was dealt to Memphis at the 2020 trade deadline.
On a team that features several talented and developing bigs, Dieng will be hard-pressed to find minutes with the Grizzlies moving forward. Perhaps a change of scenery and a new approach to his game will be welcomed in the second half of his career.
A significant knock-on Dieng’s trade value is his borderline albatross contract. He is due $16.2 and $17.2 million the current and next season respectively. Thus, the reign of General Manager Tom Thibodeau still affects franchises today.
While some may scoff at this money for a backup center, one could counter with; who is Charlotte signing with that cap space this summer? In taking a page out of the smartest of rebuilding teams’ books, it may be better to flip-flop the asset behind a bad contract and take on a draft pick on as opposed to spending cap space on a player who won’t be around when it is championship contention time.
Dieng has been your traditionally been an energy big off the bench, providing Minnesota 20 or so solid minutes a game. He already has a well-established sense for positioning on the boards and can throw down lobs and put-backs with regularity.
However, what could set Dieng apart for the next portion of his career is developing an outside shot. Free throw percentage, a reliable indicator for true range, has always been a strong point for the Senegal native. His splits from the line have only improved in recent years, and average out to 78% for his career.
More pertinently, Dieng has started shooting threes in a limited capacity recently to excellent results. After attempting less than 200 threes in the first six years of his career combined, a coaching change in Minnesota led him to attempt around 280 over the course of the past two seasons. Astoundingly, Dieng made threes at about a 36% clip since adding this weapon to his arsenal.
This evidence makes it fathomable to think that with a forward-thinking coach, Dieng can have a Lopez-Esque career trajectory. Add this to noticeably better defense and rebounding than the Bucks big-man and Dieng could be onto something with some slight adjustments. Who better than the development focused, James Borrego, to bring the best out of this moldable asset?