2024-25 Thunder player grades: Ousmane Dieng

USA Today

a day ago

The calendar has flipped to August, which means we've officially hit the low point of the NBA cycle. The next couple of months are the driest part of the year. Everybody has headed to vacation and awaits training camp to kick off the 2025-26 season.
The Oklahoma City Thunder continue to enjoy their NBA championship. They had a historic 68-14 regular-season campaign that eventually led to the franchise's first title with a 2025 NBA Finals Game 7 win. They'll enter next season as a favorite to be a rare repeat winner.
To reflect on their title run, Thunder Wire will conduct 2024-25 season grades for all 19 players who suited up for the squad at one point during the year. Twelfth up is Ousmane Dieng, who had another forgettable season:
2024-25 statistics:
Advanced stats:
Significant Percentile Finishes:
Contract:
Thoughts:
When asked about Dieng at his end-of-season press conference, you can feel Sam Presti's admiration for him through his answer. He'd cite examples from games that happened months ago. Most Thunder fans have given up on the 22-year-old, but not OKC's GM.
The rule of thumb is that a player's third season is when they take the biggest leap of their career. But in Dieng's case, it was mostly the same as his first two years. No real minutes from inconsistency and dealing with injuries. At this point, he's run out of time to establish himself as a rotation player in OKC.
It was another year where Dieng played sparingly. He logged 37 games, as a finger fracture and calf strain cost him around two months of the season. He's yet to cross 40 games played in a season since his arrival in OKC. He's only totaled 109 career games in three seasons.
From the Thunder's historic 2022 draft class, Dieng is the odd man out. He hasn't lived up to his lottery status. Considering how much of a developmental project he was when selected, there was always going to be a grace period as he caught up to speed in the NBA. But he's run out of time. Sometimes that happens with these super young and raw prospects.
It's unfortunate, too. Dieng has shown flashes in his tenure. This season was the best he's looked. He no longer played with hesitancy and made the right decisions on the court. He looked like a fleshed-out rotation player at times with his outside shot. This season saw him play the fewest number of G League games he's had to.
In previous seasons, Dieng needed to be a ball-handler to be productive. While he could do that in the G League, those touches weren't afforded to him on the Thunder. That sudden shift in role was detrimental to his NBA minutes. But this season, everything looked smoother. He played within the flow of the offense. It looked like he could be a quality backup forward.
Alas, if that's to happen, it likely won't be on the Thunder. They're rich with that archetype of a player. That makes it redundant to wait on Dieng to fully develop when they have other bench forwards who contributed to an NBA championship run. It may be time for an eventual fresh start.
Moving Forward:
Out of all the players the Thunder added in their recent rebuild, Dieng might be the biggest victim of being added at the wrong time. It's not his fault they quickly ascended into a title contender during his three seasons. That gave him little room to grow on a team with such high expectations.
Maybe if Dieng had joined the Thunder a couple of years prior, he'd log in a thousand-plus minutes to develop. A low-leverage environment is exactly what he needs to learn on the job without the pressure of wins. But that's all hypothetical. What's reality is that OKC took a swing on the 22-year-old, and it turned into a quiet miss.
Considering Dieng is about to enter his fourth season, there's no real road to improvement for him. He's buried on the depth chart of an NBA champion that's running it back with mostly the same roster. Barring the unforeseen, he likely won't be able to pencil in a rotation spot.
That leaves Dieng in a position where he could eventually be moved. It doesn't make a lot of sense to give him a contract extension, even if it's a buy-low deal. There are too many other important roster decisions ahead to worry about that. More likely, the Thunder use the 22-year-old's expiring salary as a trade chip down the road.
The Thunder may still love Dieng and his potential, but they won't be materialized in OKC. If he can become a bench forward who can spread the floor and drive to the basket, it'll likely have to happen at his next stop. He's still young enough to be worth a flyer at another team.
Final Grade: C-minus