BIO: Ousmane Dieng was born in France and grew up in Lot-et-Garonne, where his father, Ababacar, played basketball. As a junior, he played for Villeneuve Basket Club and JSA Bordeaux.

Dieng is considered a excellent passer and a defender with the potential to guard those multiple positions in the NBA. He told ESPN that fellow countryman Nic Batum of the LA Clippers and Toronto Raptors rookie of the year candidate Scottie Barnes are among the players whose film he watches and learns from.

NBL EXPERIENCE

Ousmane Dieng made his NBL debut with the New Zealand Breakers at 18 years of age. He scored three points in his first game.

After a season where the Breakers played 29 of 36 games in Australia, things only continued to get worse for the Breakers, with the team unable to play any home games during NBL22 and finishing dead last during the regular season.

After playing the previous season with a trio of Corey Webster, Tai Webster, and William McDowell-White at point guard, the team decided they would build around the younger of the three and move Corey to the bench. The Breakers then allowed him to exit his contract with him choosing to play in Europe instead. Not long after, as a result of the NBL requiring players to be vaccinated for COVID-19, Tai Webster chose to exit his contract as well and play overseas.

While losing the Webster brothers, the team gained the signatures of Kiwi Yanni Wetzell (via South East Melbourne) and import players Peyton Siva, Hugo Besson and Jeremiah Martin. Additionally, the team signed French prodigy Dieng under the league’s Next Star program.

The team immediately faced adversity, losing Siva and Thomas Abercrombie to injury and having to absorb a COVID outbreak on the eve of the season. The team signed Chasson Randle (7.8 points, 1.3 rebounds, and 0.9 assists) as a replacement player for Siva, and the team began the season with a 0–6 start.

Dieng also started the season off with a disappointing start to his first season in a top-level professional league. During his first nine games, Dieng struggled to score, averaging 16.7 minutes, 3.1 points, 2.0 rebounds, and 0.9 assists while shooting a abysmal 20 percent from the floor and just 13 from beyond the 3-point arc (4 from 31 attempts).

Dieng’s year with the breaks was one full of challenges which included Covid outbreaks, team shutdowns and playing a entire season on the road. While ESPN had Dieng as high as 11 on their draft board when he signed with the Breakers his early play saw the 2.06m perimeter player’s stock dip to 26 – just one place ahead of fellow Frenchman and Breakers teammate Hugo Besson.

New Zealand received a boost when Siva was able to return to the team shortly after, a move which then saw Jeremiah Martin (12.3 points, 2.6 rebounds, 3.2 assists, and 1.2 steals) and the Breakers agree to a mutual release. The move came as a result of high-level play from Randle, who they chose to retain instead of Martin once Peyton Siva (11.8 points, 2.5 rebounds, 4.6 assists, and 2 steals) returned from injury.

Although the team had planned to play their home games at the back end of the season, COVID-19 restrictions made that impossible and forced the team to base themselves in Tasmania for the majority of the season.

During the second hal of the season, Dieng started to flash his upside while getting more opportunities to initiate as a point-forward and averaging 1.01 points per possession — a increase from 0.57 points per possession in the first half of the season.

In March 2022, he strung together a number of impressive games over the course of a seven-day period where he dropped 17 points, 9 rebounds, and 3 assists against the JackJumpers, Tasmania, 17 points and 3 rebounds against Brisbane and then 13 points, 4 rebounds on Adelaide to finish the week. Dieng shrugged off his shooting woes and across the team’s final 12 games, averaged 13.3 points while shooting 48% from the field and 36% from 3-point range.

Dieng became the first European star to make the leap to Australia as part of the NBL’s Next Stars program and was rewarded with being selected by the New York Knicks in the 2022 NBA Draft a few months later.

The Breakers were led by the all-around play of Yanni Wetzell (17.7 points, 8.4 rebounds, 1.3 assists, 1.6 steals, and 1.1 blocks) who left the team to play in Europe once New Zealand had no chance to make the playoffs. Despite leaving the team with a month of the Breakers season still remaining Wetzell was named club MVP. Hugo Besson (13.9 points, 4 rebounds, and 2.3 assists) and Finn Delany (10 points, 5.5 rebounds, and 2 assists) would raise their games during that final month of the season but by mid-February had fallen to 4–10.

Besson would average 13.9 points, 4 rebounds, and 2.3 assists as New Zealand finished with a 5–23 record, the Breakers worst season in their 19-year history.

Ousmane Dieng played one season in the NBL. He averaged 8.8 points, 3.1 rebounds, and 1 assists in 23 NBL games.

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Dan Boyce (811 Posts)

Dan Boyce is a die-hard Sydney Kings fan who grew up in Melbourne during the roaring 90's of Australian Basketball and spent far too much time collecting Futera NBL Basketball cards.