Minnesota Sports Forum

Dieng will not be traded this season.
Guaranteed.

CoolBreeze44 wrote:Why trade a big who we have developed into a pretty good player, for a big who is an unknown with potentially a higher ceiling. Eventually you have to stop setting yourself back by rebuilding.

That is my concern with WCS.

bleedspeed177 wrote:

CoolBreeze44 wrote:Why trade a big who we have developed into a pretty good player, for a big who is an unknown with potentially a higher ceiling. Eventually you have to stop setting yourself back by rebuilding.

That is my concern with WCS.

It's hard to really call Stein a project or an unknown. The guy has a 15.71 PER shooting 60% from the floor with 6/5.6/1.2 in 20 MPG's. That's who we thought he'd be. He's a per 36 of 10/10/2.2. So really the only unknown is how good defensively he can become on top of what he already is now. He's 22 and stays in his lane by not trying to do too much. I'd take him for Dieng for sure. It's definitely an offense for defense swap, but WCS is a known commodity who's pretty good as a rookie so I see it as getting a guy earlier in his rookie deal who's younger and fills a need. I'd take WCS over Noel as well. I think he's going to be a monster defensively especially if you put him next to Towns and let him roam while Towns anchors. KG helping WCS on the defensive end could make him a scary good defender.

khans2k5 wrote:

bleedspeed177 wrote:

CoolBreeze44 wrote:Why trade a big who we have developed into a pretty good player, for a big who is an unknown with potentially a higher ceiling. Eventually you have to stop setting yourself back by rebuilding.

That is my concern with WCS.

It's hard to really call Stein a project or an unknown. The guy has a 15.71 PER shooting 60% from the floor with 6/5.6/1.2 in 20 MPG's. That's who we thought he'd be. He's a per 36 of 10/10/2.2. So really the only unknown is how good defensively he can become on top of what he already is now. He's 22 and stays in his lane by not trying to do too much. I'd take him for Dieng for sure. It's definitely an offense for defense swap, but WCS is a known commodity who's pretty good as a rookie so I see it as getting a guy earlier in his rookie deal who's younger and fills a need. I'd take WCS over Noel as well. I think he's going to be a monster defensively especially if you put him next to Towns and let him roam while Towns anchors. KG helping WCS on the defensive end could make him a scary good defender.

So why would Sacramento do that deal?

CoolBreeze44 wrote:

khans2k5 wrote:

bleedspeed177 wrote:

CoolBreeze44 wrote:Why trade a big who we have developed into a pretty good player, for a big who is an unknown with potentially a higher ceiling. Eventually you have to stop setting yourself back by rebuilding.

That is my concern with WCS.

It's hard to really call Stein a project or an unknown. The guy has a 15.71 PER shooting 60% from the floor with 6/5.6/1.2 in 20 MPG's. That's who we thought he'd be. He's a per 36 of 10/10/2.2. So really the only unknown is how good defensively he can become on top of what he already is now. He's 22 and stays in his lane by not trying to do too much. I'd take him for Dieng for sure. It's definitely an offense for defense swap, but WCS is a known commodity who's pretty good as a rookie so I see it as getting a guy earlier in his rookie deal who's younger and fills a need. I'd take WCS over Noel as well. I think he's going to be a monster defensively especially if you put him next to Towns and let him roam while Towns anchors. KG helping WCS on the defensive end could make him a scary good defender.

So why would Sacramento do that deal?

Outside of Cousins their next highest scoring big man is Koufas at 6.7 PPG. They need offense in the froncourt and Dieng provides it. Meanwhile we need defense in our frontcourt and WCS would provide that. Both teams would get a guy that could start for them. I think it's a pretty fair swap for what each team needs. The only hold up is really the contract year difference and they might be willing to look past that to get a better fitting piece next to Cousins. We'd run Towns/WCS/Belly as the main 3 with a little KG and Pek sprinkled in and they would run Dieng/Cousins/Koufas with a little Quincy Acy sprinkled in.

After watching the replay of the last win, while listening to the Bulls announcers go from clueless to surprise to actually comparing him to "The Dream", in regards to Dieng's offensive abilities, there is no way I trade him now. Run Dieng and KAT out there and we have our Pup Towers. Get a real defensive coach to help Dieng fix a few things, plus implement a great team scheme and we are set for years, instead of rebuilding again. At some point you have to build chemistry and teamwork to progress, look at OKC and GS and the Spurs, they don't just trade players to trade players.

I haven't seen the last few games but we have quite a few more games to evaluate Dieng on before really having to decide if he is a keeper or asset. He is a very odd unique player with weird strengths and weaknesses.

The problem I have in dealing him is I don't know for certain what we would want back in return. This team is set with some talent but we are not certain what position is ultimately best for those talented guys like Towns Wiggins and Lavine. In addition are their some other guys that can step up like Bazz? What about Rubio? Oh and what about that magical draft pick and who is running this team and coaching it? Too many questions to make me really excited about dealing a useful player in Dieng right now although I absolutely agree that considering what we should do with him is a worthwhile conversation. I'm generally going to wait another 20 games or more before I weigh in much more.

D'Natagal wrote:After watching the replay of the last win, while listening to the Bulls announcers go from clueless to surprise to actually comparing him to "The Dream", in regards to Dieng's offensive abilities, there is no way I trade him now.

Part of that was may have been Gorgui having a quieter game against them early in the season (6 points on 3 for 6 shooting, 7 rebounds, and 2 steals in 23 minutes.

But if those guys would scout opponents more, they'd have seen that after the Cleveland game, January 25th, Gorgui mercifully took Pek's starting spot. And since that Cleveland game over a 7 game stretch, Gorgui's averaged 17.5 points on 66% shooting, 10 rebounds, 2.7 assists, and 1 steal per game. His scoring is even more efficient than it looks because he's gotten to the line for 6.4 FTs per game and knocked down 84% of them. On the year, he is now #20 in the NBA in true shooting percentage.

Defensively, he has had only .4 blocks per game in this past stretch, and this highlights questions about his defense. He does still average 1 block, though that's less than last year, in part because he seems to be better about not leaving his feet defensively.

When the Bulls announcers mentioned Hakeem's Dream Shake, I was just thinking of another player-patented move whose move Gorgui seems to have tried out in that game--the Nowitski one-footed jumper. I think he was 1 for 2 on that the last game, so it remains to be seen if he can develop that. But I liked seeing it the other night, and it's been good to see him going to the bank again like the old days.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dqW_PcZ_IcAHere's a video of Gorgui last summer showing something like a Nowitzki at the FIBA World Cup. I don't want him fading that much, but that's the kind of touch he's got.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dqW_PcZ_IcA

Also, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qXJGZBbd5dAthis video makes me want to see us give Gorgui the green light from 3, at least for a bit as an experiment.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qXJGZBbd5dA

Good stuff Drew. You seem very enamored with Gorgui, and he really does have quite an interesting bag of tricks offensively. Keep in mind that he has a relatively low usage rate, which somewhat limits the overall impact of his efficiency. In addition, he tends to turn the ball over quite a bit for a guy that isn't a PG and isn't carrying a big load offensively. That sort of knocks a bit of the bloom off his stellar shooting efficiency numbers, since his points per possession numbers are lower as a result of the TOs.

I'm all for continuing to ride the KAT-Gorgui tandem for a while here and see if they can maintain this momentum. But longer term, Gorgui is going to command a pretty huge pay day and it begs the question whether we can find an equivalent or cheaper option that provides more to us defensively. I think it's worth exploring.

I definitely sound more pro-G than I probably am in general right now. Part of it is he's on fire right now. Part of it's just that I think he's undervalued a bit and I'd like to correct that so I'm focusing more on the positives.

But I do think the dude's real good, and with the cap rising even more after this offseason, we could get him at a relatively good price and keep him or move him in the future if the right deal comes along.