Los Angeles Lakers: 3 minimum free agents to avoid at all costs

3. Gogrui Dieng

The Los Angeles Lakers are also going to have to address the center position this offseason as well. Andre Drummond is a free agent and is going to be priced out of LA, Marc Gasol should return but should not play a big role and Montrezl Harrell has a player option that he will likely use to opt-out.

Even if Harrell does return to the Lakers it would not hurt to add a center to the roster, especially considering there are several cheap options available to the Lakers that are all solid. One of those options is not Gogrui Dieng.

Dieng will certainly be cheap like the other players on that list and he should find a team to play for next season. That team just should not be the Los Angeles Lakers. Dieng is not at all what the Lakers need out of a depth center and quite frankly, it would be better for the Lakers to sign another position before singing Dieng if he was the only center option remaining.

He just does not give the Lakers anything close to what they need. The Lakers need a rim protector and rebounder and Dieng isn’t really either of those things. He averaged only 3.7 rebounds and 0.4 blocks in 14.5 minutes per game.

That is not much playing time to go off of but the per-36 numbers don’t make it look any better. Dieng averaged 9.1 rebounds and 1.0 blocks per 36 minutes last season. For comparison’s sake, Dwight Howard averaged 17.5 rebounds and 1.9 blocks per 36 minutes last season.

What makes Dieng valuable in 2021 and what will get him a job is his ability to stretch the floor. He can be a floor-spacing center that gets 10-15 minutes per game on a contending team as he knocked down 42.9% of his threes last season (35.7% career three-point shooter).

The Los Angeles Lakers already have a center that can stretch the floor in Marc Gasol. Dieng would be more of the same, and quite frankly, would probably be even worse for the Lakers than Gasol.