Minnesota Sports Forum

We're now over 20 games into the season, which means it's fair to start assessing our players. I'd like to start with Gorgui.

Overview - Gorgui started out the year as Pek's backup and was receiving regular minutes off the bench, But it didn't take long for Pek's injuries to crop up and it appears now that Gorgui will be our starting Center the rest of the way. Even if Pek gets healthy again this year, he's probably best coming off the bench in limited minutes.

Offense - Gorgui was drafted under the premise that we could use his length and shotblocking in a lineup that featured Pekovic, Love, and Cunningham, none of whom were known for their rim protection. And while Gorgui has proven to be a fairly good shotblocker, the real surprise has been his offensive game. We saw the first hints of this over the summer when Gorgui led his national team (Senegal) in scoring, with 16 PPG, including a 27 point outing against Croatia.

Gorgui doesn't have one "go to" move, but instead does a little of everything to score points, including sweeping hooks, step-back turnarounds, pump fakes and drives, and a nifty face-up bank shot he can hit from mid-range. He tends to struggle finishing in traffic and has been inconsistent from 15 feet on out. He is sporting a 59 TS% which is very good. However, his usage is quite low, as Flip rarely designs plays for Gorgui. While I don't think Gorgui has the game to be a big-time scorer, I do think he should be given more touches in the post. And unlike other Centers in the league, he's not a liability at the free throw line, so you feel comfortable having him in there at crunch time and not having him be a target for fouls.

Dieng is one of the better passing big men in the league. He's not quite up there with Noah or Gasol yet, but he's very good. He's averaging over 3 assists per game over his past 10 games versus only 1.1 turnovers. That is really impressive. Flip will pull Dieng out of the paint and get him touches on the perimeter, where he often finds cutters or open shooters.

The other area Dieng excels at is offensive rebounding, where he's averaging over 4 per 36 minutes. His ability to chase down missed shots and give his team second chance opportunities is extremely valuable (especially considering how often we miss!).

Defense - Ironically, given the reason we drafted him, this is where Gorgui really struggles. First, the good. Gorgui is a pretty damn good pick and roll defender. He's able to hedge out on screens and get back to his man quickly. And if for some reason he gets caught in a switch, he's actually pretty capable of moving his feet and contesting a shot against quicker perimeter players.

As a weakside shotblocker, Gorgui is decent, but not great. He often seems to be more concerned about fouling at times than going up and challenging shots. This is somewhat understandable given the dearth of healthy Centers on the roster behind him (i.e. none). But I still think he could be better. The other thing Dieng will sometimes do is try to draw the charge. Typically what happens is the ref either calls it a blocking foul or doesn't blow the whistle at all. In either case, Dieng is typically toppling backwards and sprawled out on the ground. The bottom-line is that his attempts to draw charges aren't working. It also puts him in the bad habit of having his hands at his side when they should always be straight up against oncoming opponents.

Dieng gets his fair share of steals due to active hands and nimble feet. When you look at his blocks + steals, he's one of the better Centers at the amount of deflections he gets.

Dieng is an average defensive rebounder for a Center. And he doesn't really help team rebounding because he doesn't occupy a ton of space or seal folks off. Pekovic isn't a great individual rebounder either, but the team tended to rebound well with him in the game because he eats up so much space.

Where Dieng really struggles is guarding post players one on one. And they don't necessarily have to be bigger than him for this to be a problem. When we played the Knicks, Amare Stoudemire easily was able to bump Gorgui out of position and get clean shots on the interior. Gorgui has poor balance and a weak base, which means he is easily rooted out of position. Basically, when two opposing forces hit each other, and Gorgui is one of them, he will always be the one that acquiesces to the contact.

Summary - Of our starters, Gorgui easily posts the best WS/48 and PER metrics. He's a very solid all-around Center that primarily struggles with post defense. But otherwise, he does a lot of good things out there. I think if he's paired with a more brutish power forward (Hello! Jeff Adrien!), it may help offset some of his weaknesses. As it is, he's doing battle night in and night out playing next to two Small Forwards, neither of whom are equipped to offer much interior help.

Thanks for the great post and eval. I agree with everything. When he is paired with Young we are in trouble. Young and Pek could have worked, but Young and Dieng we just end up getting pushed around by almost everyone.

I think your assessment is fair and balanced. Good write up. I think Dieng can be an effective guy when paired with the right guys around him (as you noted).

Thanks bleed and Carlos. I just put one up for Shabazz too. I'll stop there for now and see if others want to do write-ups on any of our other players.

Great analysis Q.

At least once a game I see Gorgui hit a tough shot and make it look easy and it makes me think, "why the heck are we not trying to get this guy more involved in the offense?"

I just checked his stats, and he's only taking 6 shots per game this year, which is 11th on the team. He's shooting 52%, while the 10 guys taking more shots than him are collectively shooting 43%. Compare that to Thad taking 13.5 shots on 44% shooting, Wiggins taking 11.7 on 40%, or Mo taking 9.8 shots on 39% shooting. Basic math says that we should be getting Dieng more shots.

Centers have traditionally had fewer shots because they can't usually create their own shots, it's tougher to get them good looks, and if they can't get their shot off, many centers can't pass it out well so teams are rightly reluctant to run plays for them. They also don't usually get the shots in transition that guards get. That's why it's not always smart to follow this basic math. Kendrick Perkins might shoot a high percentage (back in the day anyway) but you definitely don't want to try to get Perk more shots!

But Gorgui Dieng isn't Kendrick Perkins, so our offense needs to stop treating him like Perk. While Gorgui is not great at creating his own shot (at least not off the dribble), he definitely has a bigger range than most centers and can shoot over guys easily and he can pass out of trouble better than most centers too. This means it will be easier to get him good looks and less risky too. He can hit a mid-range jumper pretty well, even off the glass from the elbow, and like Q pointed out, he's actually pretty good at hitting cutters with passes when given the chance. Pulling him out of the paint a bit would also open up the floor under the basket because defenders have to respect his jumper, which creates driving and cutting opportunities for others.

We ought to be running the offense more through Dieng and trying to get him up to 9-10 shots a game. This could help our offense be a little more efficient and score a few more points, it could help our young guys LaVine and Wiggins get to the basket more on cuts by opening the defense and getting them passes from Dieng, and it could help Dieng continue to develop as an offensive player (and maybe render Pek more tradeable down the line).

We talk a lot about the development of the rookies plus Bennett and Shabbazz, but Dieng is also an important part of this franchise's future. He's older, but hasn't been playing all that long, and his surprisingly good offensive game shows us he's still capable of growing as a player. If we can help him develop while also helping out the team immediately, that's a no brainer.

Drew, I agree that Flip needs to look at running some more sets through Gorgui, including in the low post. How much worse than Wiggins and Young could he be? These guys are our first two scoring options since Pek and Martin went down and their efficiency has suffered big-time as a result. We would be well-served to Gorgs a few more touches.

Getting guys to do everything except for what we really want them to do is a troubling trend with this team.