While watching New Orleans Pelicans rookie Cheick Diallo rapidly run the floor, leap for rebounds and extend his long arms to block shots, it can be easy to forget that the second-round pick is only 20 years old and a relative newcomer to basketball. A casual observer also may not realize that Diallo is one of the NBA’s least experienced players, having logged a total of just 202 minutes in his one collegiate season at Kansas. By comparison, fellow Pelicans first-year pro Buddy Hield played 4,182 minutes for Oklahoma.
Deep into his debut season with New Orleans, the 6-foot-9, 220-pounder hasn’t gotten a ton of reps at the NBA level yet, with 94 regular season minutes under his belt, but he’s been using the D-League to pick up invaluable pointers and experience. Currently assigned to the Greensboro Swarm, Diallo has delivered numerous impressive statistical performances, including five double-doubles, but perhaps more importantly, he’s played 16 games and roughly 400 minutes.
“The first thing is he really needs to play,” New Orleans GM Dell Demps said. “At Kansas, he had a (complicated) eligibility issue that really limited his ability to play in games. So just getting him to play in pro games is very important.”
Diallo has benefited in Greensboro from playing for Swarm first-year head coach Noel Gillespie, a former Phoenix Suns assistant under Alvin Gentry. Diallo is focusing partly on learning some of the intricacies of individual and team defense at the pro level. He’s already made an impact at the D-League level in shot-blocking, ranking in the top 10 of the circuit at 2.0 per game.
“He seems to find a way to score. Offense comes easy for him,” Demps said of Diallo, who’s averaging 13.4 points in the D-League and had an 18-point NBA game vs. the Clippers. “The focus for him now is more on the defensive end, learning NBA defenses, schemes. Learning different pick-and-roll coverages, when to blitz, when to switch, help defense, rotations, keeping guards in front of you when switches happen.”
Diallo has become stronger physically since he left college, another key element to his development as a player.
“Our medical group has done a good job getting him stronger,” Demps said. “He has one of those frames where it’s difficult to gain weight, but he’s gained a lot of strength. He’s a lot stronger than he was the day we drafted him eight months ago.”
Diallo has gone back and forth between the Pelicans and the D-League since December, being strategically assigned to D-League franchises in Austin, Long Island and Greensboro when the opportunity was ideal. That will likely continue as New Orleans seeks to give the native of the African nation of Mali as much on-court experience as possible, though it’s possible he’ll be seen some with the big-league Pelicans in 2016-17.
“We think it’s important for him to play,” Demps said. “If an opportunity presents itself here (with New Orleans), we will look at it. But we want to make sure he gets a certain number of games played. So if he’s not in the rotation here, we’re hoping to get him 25, 30 games of (major) playing time for him this season.”