{"id":2111,"date":"2016-10-31T22:11:54","date_gmt":"2016-11-01T02:11:54","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonprobasketball.com\/?p=2111"},"modified":"2016-10-31T22:11:54","modified_gmt":"2016-11-01T02:11:54","slug":"timberwolves-sign-gorgui-dieng-extension","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/2016\/10\/31\/timberwolves-sign-gorgui-dieng-extension\/","title":{"rendered":"Report: Minnesota Timberwolves Sign Gorgui Dieng to Extension"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The <strong>Minnesota Timberwolves<\/strong> have reportedly signed big man <strong><a href=\"http:\/\/www.basketball-reference.com\/players\/d\/dienggo01.html?utm_campaign=Linker&amp;utm_source=direct&amp;utm_medium=linker-\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Gorgui Dieng<\/a><\/strong> to a contract extension. His new deal will be worth $64 million over four years.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Shams Charania<\/strong> of <strong>The Vertical<\/strong> broke the news on Monday evening:<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-width=\"550\" data-dnt=\"true\">\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">Minnesota forward Gorgui Dieng is finalizing a four-year, $64 million contract extension, league sources tell The Vertical.<\/p>\n<p>&mdash; Shams Charania (@ShamsCharania) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/ShamsCharania\/status\/793206218722578433?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">October 31, 2016<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<h2><strong>Timberwolves Sign Gorgui Dieng to Extension<\/strong><\/h2>\n<p>Dieng&#8217;s new contract will start kicking in for\u00a0the 2017-18 season, and it&#8217;ll take him through the 2020-21 season. The big man has started alongside <strong><a href=\"http:\/\/www.basketball-reference.com\/players\/t\/townska01.html?utm_campaign=Linker&amp;utm_source=direct&amp;utm_medium=linker-\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Karl-Anthony Towns<\/a><\/strong>\u00a0in the frontcourt in each\u00a0of Minnesota&#8217;s first two games this season. Dieng has averaged 13 points, 13.5 rebounds, and 1.5 blocks per game over that span. The scoring and rebounding totals would be career highs for Dieng, if he were to keep them up over the course of a full season.<\/p>\n<p>Dieng averaged 10.1 points, 7.1 rebounds, and 1.2 blocks per game last season for the Timberwolves. He played 27.1 minutes per game, appearing in all 82 of Minnesota&#8217;s contests. The big man looks\u00a0to remain a starter throughout the current season, as he started just 39 games last year.<\/p>\n<p>Although Dieng himself is 26 years old &#8211; close to his prime years &#8211; he is still part of the Timberwolves&#8217; bright young core. That group includes <strong><a href=\"http:\/\/www.basketball-reference.com\/players\/d\/dunnkr01.html?utm_campaign=Linker&amp;utm_source=direct&amp;utm_medium=linker-\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Kris Dunn<\/a><\/strong>, <strong><a href=\"http:\/\/www.basketball-reference.com\/players\/l\/lavinza01.html?utm_campaign=Linker&amp;utm_source=direct&amp;utm_medium=linker-\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Zach LaVine<\/a><\/strong>, <strong><a href=\"http:\/\/www.basketball-reference.com\/players\/w\/wiggian01.html?utm_campaign=Linker&amp;utm_source=direct&amp;utm_medium=linker-\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Andrew Wiggins<\/a><\/strong>, and the aforementioned Towns (as well as\u00a0<strong><a href=\"http:\/\/www.basketball-reference.com\/players\/r\/rubiori01.html?utm_campaign=Linker&amp;utm_source=direct&amp;utm_medium=linker-\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Ricky Rubio<\/a><\/strong>, but he <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonprobasketball.com\/2016\/10\/18\/keys-minnesota-timberwolves-season\/\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">may be traded<\/a>).<\/p>\n<p>For now, Dieng and the Timberwolves aim to make the playoffs for the first time since 2004. They are led by their new head coach,\u00a0<strong>Tom Thibodeau<\/strong>.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Main photo:<\/p>\n<div class=\"getty embed image\" style=\"background-color: #fff; display: inline-block; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue',Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif; color: #a7a7a7; font-size: 11px; width: 100%; max-width: 594px;\">\n<div style=\"padding: 0; margin: 0; text-align: left;\"><a style=\"color: #a7a7a7; text-decoration: none; font-weight: normal !important; border: none; display: inline-block;\" href=\"http:\/\/www.gettyimages.com\/detail\/171607241\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Embed from Getty Images<\/a><\/div>\n<div style=\"overflow: hidden; position: relative; height: 0; padding: 72.390572% 0 0 0; width: 100%;\"><iframe loading=\"lazy\" style=\"display: inline-block; position: absolute; top: 0; left: 0; width: 100%; height: 100%; margin: 0;\" src=\"\/\/embed.gettyimages.com\/embed\/171607241?et=Nmk6kP5mSmJGYdKg-o2X3Q&amp;viewMoreLink=on&amp;sig=sW0c8O-DJ_5zXMdVIkp-OtVy7F0H7oBMangQY0czIjs=&amp;caption=true\" width=\"594\" height=\"430\" frameborder=\"0\" scrolling=\"no\"><\/iframe><\/div>\n<p style=\"margin: 0;\">\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Minnesota Timberwolves sign Gorgui Dieng to a four-year, $64 million contract extension, according to Shams Charania of The Vertical.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":946,"featured_media":2112,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","sfio_featured_image":false,"sfio_embed_code":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[21,62,3],"tags":[65,546,213,214,96,202],"class_list":["post-2111","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-timberwolves","category-nba","category-news","tag-basketball","tag-gorgui-dieng","tag-karl-anthony-towns","tag-minnesota-timberwolves","tag-nba","tag-nba-news"],"modified_by":"Lior Kozai (Managing Editor)","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2111","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/946"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2111"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2111\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2112"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2111"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2111"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2111"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}