Ousmane Dieng Assigned to Blue, Continues to Improve
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Ousmane Dieng won’t be a superstar overnight.
In fact, he may never be. But at 6-foot-10 with fluidity and a clean shooting stroke, he has the potential.
And he’s shown flashes of brilliance in his short time his rookie season.
Monday night, he posted a career night, which flipped a switch of what he could become with the right development path.
Dieng posted 15 points, a career-high and only the second time scoring double-digits, while also adding five rebounds to his stat line. Both of Dieng’s double figure scoring nights have come in his last three games with OKC.
Less than 24 hours after his career performance the recent No. 11 pick was assigned back to the G League. Dieng has split time between the Thunder and the Blue this season, in hopes of progressing his development.
Dieng has played 14 games with the Thunder’s roster to his six games played in the G League.
In his 14 NBA games, he’s averaging 4.4 points, 2.9 rebounds and 1.4 assists per game. While he notched 14 points, 7.5 rebounds and 3.8 assists in his G League experience.
While the G League overall is a step below the NBA in terms of talent, the G League gives Dieng more focused attention with less pressure from an NBA grind to develop his skill set and fine tune his strengths.
In G League contests Dieng plays twice as many minutes than he does when he’s in the NBA. For the 19-year-old that extra time in game experience no matter the level can pay dividends down the stretch for a Thunder team seemingly on the precipice of success.
In Dieng’s most recent stretch with the NBA roster he began to show more promise and skills that he could use to develop into a key player including notching two of his best games in the last three outings.
Dieng will now head back to the Blue’s roster, but he’ll be back with the Thunder eventually.
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