Potential scenarios for Gorgui Dieng and the Memphis Grizzlies

The Memphis Grizzlies don’t buy out Gorgui Dieng’s contract

So much has been said about the potential buyout of Gorgui Dieng’s contract that there hasn’t been much consideration into what he’ll do for this team if he isn’t bought out.

Gorgui Dieng has not stepped onto the court in a Grizzlies uniform in the month of March.

It’s an unfortunate situation; the Grizzlies want to continue to develop young players and have a reliable center in Jonas Valanciunas.

A lot of fans expected to see more of Dieng after Jackson Jr.’s injury, but it looks like they’ve decided to use their young talent to patch this hole. We’ve seen more of the Grizzlies second-round pick in Xavier Tillman than we have of Dieng this year.

But none of this means that Dieng has no value for the Grizzlies. If the Grizz decide to keep him, he’d serve as insurance for this team. If Jonas Valanciunas were to go down, Memphis would have a really strong replacement for him in GD.

But that’s the thing — JV has never been a player who gets frequently injured. He is as reliable of a center as any team could ask for. In all likelihood, we won’t see him miss any significant time and with the looming return of JJJ, Dieng does not have a place in this team’s rotation.

Even if JV did get injured, Jackson Jr. will be back and the Grizzlies could play similar small-ball to how they’ve been currently playing. That’s why this is a much more unlikely situation.

We’ll probably see Dieng playing for another team in a few weeks, but we can still appreciate him while he’s in Memphis.