National Basketball Association

Timberwolves Player Preview: Gorgui Dieng

Published Jun. 30, 2017 6:28 p.m. ET

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This is the tenth part in our series previewing the entire Minnesota Timberwolves roster, player-by-player from the least to the most minutes played last season.

Wolves big man Gorgui Dieng has begun to showcase his talent over the past two seasons, and only seems to be improving as he enters his fourth professional campaign.

Dieng grew up in Senegal, but went to school at the University of Louisville where he won a national championship in 2013.

Over the past two seasons, he’s averaged 9.9 points and 7.7 rebounds per game. As a big, athletic player with good hops, he’s effective on the glass but doesn’t exactly block as many shots as one might think — Dieng blocked just 1.2 shots per game last season and saw his block rate dip from 4.6 percent over his first two NBA seasons to 3.5 percent in 2015-16.

Luckily, Tom Thibodeau was brought in for his defensive strategies, and I believe Dieng will be able contribute defensively and block more shots in the upcoming season.

Gorgui rebounds well, I believe if he can grab eight or more rebounds a night he’ll be in the right range. No one will expect Dieng to grab, say 13 rebounds a game with Karl Anthony-Towns on the floor with him, after all.

Scoring for him is similar to rebounding; Dieng’s 10 points or so per game is really all the team will need from him. The Timberwolves’ scoring is expected to be done mostly by Towns, Andrew Wiggins, and Zach LaVine.

Dieng seems likely to be the starter at power forward, although Thibodeau could always choose to shake things up to insert Nemanja Bjelica or Shabazz Muhammad into the lineup, depending on match-ups and other variable. Ultimately, Dieng will probably play around 30 minutes per game.

Timberwolves fans should be looking forward to watching him contribute this year. Gorgui Dieng will no doubt be a big part of the rotation and will be exciting to watch alongside Karl-Anthony Towns and with additional long-range shooting threats dotting the perimeter.

Stay tuned for the continuation of the player preview series as we’re in the home stretch — just five players remaining.