Is Dieng really that good of a defender?
I haven't seen enough of him. Only snippets here and there. Missed nearly all of his play late last season after I gave up on T'Wolves earlier in the seaosn and I have been avoiding Minnesota games of late since Ricky Rubio is out -- I find Minny unwatchable without Rubio there to run the offense.
The defensive stats do not look great for him. Even in the video above where Dieng was having a career-night, he was getting pushed around easily by Asik. On 82games.com, opposition PER is poor which is fairly predictable for someone who gets outmuscled that easily. His on/off defensive stats are bad this year, netural last year (backing up dodgy defender Pekovic). The T'Wolves starting lineup last year with Pekovic had 1.05 defensive rating in 1,000 minutes. Same unit with Dieng at center instead of Pekovic went for 1.13 defensive rating in a fairly healthy sample of 225 minutes. There isn't enough minutes yet this year to compare.
I don't know where you are getting your numbers but the analyzes i posted of deing is from espn. The link is in the description. I am not like making these numbers up.yes he probably needs to add a little muscle but he still is playing really really well. he has a per of 20.
I got the stats from a website called
www.82games.com if you want to check them out.
Dieng = 2014/15 stats =
http://www.82games.com/1415/14MIN14.HTMDieng = 2013/14 stats =
http://www.82games.com/1314/13MIN16.HTMLineup stats for T'Wolves for Wolves starting lineup with Pekovic at center versus Dieng at center = 2013/14 =
http://www.82games.com/1314/1314MIN2.HTM----------------------------------------
I mean, even last last night, Dieng had a good game against Sacramento if you look at just his numbers with 12 points, 10 rebounds, 2 steals, 2 blocks, 1 assist. But he also gave up 31 points (11-15 FGA) and 18 rebounds to Cousins.
Now Cousins is a very tough matchup since (1) he is one of top centers in league (2) very physical and strong which appears to be a problem for Dieng .... so I wouldn't be too harsh with Dieng but I do wonder just how good Dieng really is defensively.
---------------------------------------
Like I said, I haven't seen him play enough to know for myself.
I just question the reputation a bit.
- Maybe it is more future potential than current ability. That when he adds a bit more muscle to his frame, that Dieng will be really strong defensively.
- Or maybe those stats I noted up above do not tell full story and Dieng is actually very good defensively. Defensive stats can be unreliable.
- Or maybe Dieng is good at some things defensively (like PnR defense, transition defense, defensive rotations, face up bigs) but just struggles in man-to-man defense against bigger physical centers
- Or maybe he is just a mediocre defender.
Like I said, I have no idea. I haven't seen enough of him to know. But the stats above are not kind to his reputation as quality defensive player.
