If the inverse relationship between DeSagana Diop’s scoring output and Spanish comprehension continues at its current rate, do you realize that by season’s end his languages spoken:points per game ratio will be 5:1? That would trump even the legendary performances of late career Dikembe Mutombo Mpolondo Mukamba Jean-Jacques Wamutombo, no easy feat.
Diop is a dinosaur (and not in a racist way). He doesn’t rebound very well. I don’t think he can dribble. He is large and immobile. Like fat hair in a tub drain. He should be somewhere in the TSV background, nestled snug between Rasho and the Work Horace Grant. Somehow he exists now, and alone, a last, faint reminder of the big man’s glory days. It’s the NBA version of Children of Men. Awkwardly sized, endlessly bungling men. Of course we love him.
This could be a special season for Diop. Thrice before in his career (a career truly best summarized by the absence of adjective before it) he’s achieved the Golden Ratio, and while I don’t want to count Diop’s chickens before Diop and Boris Diaw eat them all, the big man is well on his way towards another season of more fouls than points; a remarkable fourth; the most golden of Golden Sombreros. TSV will continue to report on this story as it develops. It is, without shame, what we live for.
But the point is, the other night Diop air-balled a free throw. By a lot.
What’s more impressive: to jam over Perkins, to jump over Lucas, or to miss by this much over no one? You can keep your fancy slam-dunk shots. I have a feeling this won’t be my last post about Desagana Diop.
[...] Desagana Diop, but our love for him was recently recognized, and we have an inkling that he’ll make another appearance soon enough. He’s bad. [...]