Thunder End of Year Report Card: Ousmane Dieng

Ousmane Dieng spent plenty of his first season playing with the Oklahoma City Blue.

Ousmane Dieng was selected with the no. 11 pick by the Oklahoma City Thunder, who traded three future first-round picks to make the deal happen. However, with three lottery picks and a plethora of young talent, there was only so much opportunity for the current Thunder roster.

Because of the amount of young talent on the Thunder, Dieng spent plenty of time with the Oklahoma City Blue, the Thunder’s G League Affiliate. This let him develop his game while the Thunder managed the main roster and rotated the squad.

Overall Grade: C+

Grading a player who only appeared in 39 games with the main roster and made only one start isn’t easy. The best way to analyze Dieng’s game is to break down the potential and the flashes that he had shown across the season.

The 19-year-old spent nine regular season games with the Blue, averaging 17.2 points per game in 34.6 minutes per game. In 11 games in the Showcase Cup, Dieng averaged 15.8 points per game, also on 34.6 minutes per game.

Dieng’s 39 appearances consisted of one start and 14.9 minutes per game. With that sample size of his league games, Dieng didn’t have eye-popping numbers.

Offense

Dieng has some serious offensive potential. We’ve seen his capability of knocking down 3-pointers, and he can use his craftiness to get to the rim and score. In the season finale against the Memphis Grizzlies, Dieng popped off for 22 points on 8-of-15 shooting. Before that, his career high was 17 points, set in an impressive win over the San Antonio Spurs.

When Dieng was able to be aggressive as a scorer, he showed flashes of a solid scorer, and his raw talent is something the Thunder should be able to continue and develop as time rolls on. It helps that Dieng was a point guard growing up and has the skills of a point guard with his 6-foot-10 frame.

Back to the raw talent, Dieng has an impressive-looking jump shot, but will need to make some minor tweaks to see his shot fall at a more consistent rate. Because it’s not where he can eventually be, he can’t improve his grade.

Defense

Being 6-foot-10, there’s some obvious advantages on defense for Dieng. On top of his decent point of attack defense, Dieng uses his length and height to bother shooters when they decide to take their shot.

Like his offense, Dieng’s defense is built on potential and raw talent. If he can build his defensive techniques, like sliding his feet and playing less straight up, he’ll be a better point of attack defender.
One of the biggest traits on defense is effort, though, and Dieng brought that. It showed plenty of times this season that, despite not having much opportunity, he was going to try hard on that side of the ball.

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