Welcome to the Knicks Mohamed Diawara (51st Pick 2025 Draft)

[ctorres]

Read on Twitter

Read on Twitter

Read on Twitter

Deserves his own thread to talk about him

[Iron Mantis]

Looking forward to seeing how good he can be defensively.

[ctorres]

Looking forward to seeing how good he can be defensively.

Highlights make him look like a legit 3&D guy who goes north to south like Giannis

Watch on YouTube

[CyKnickal]

Man I can smell the crickets in here...wtf....3 posts for our new guy?

We need some NYKMentality positivity up in here....I'll go...

Dude looks like the next Giannis!!!!

Giannis Antekompompo folks!!!!!!!

What a waste of genes. As a Pakistani man, I have the natural God given ability to do your taxes...or fix a computer....I can't imagine what I would do if I was a physical specimen like this guy, loving basketball the way I do.

[HEZI]

Just looked up his numbers and it’s awful. Probably not an NBA player

He’s 20 years old 6’8” and shot 38% from the field 31% from 3 and 48% from FT. I don’t care how good his defense is

[ctorres]

Man I can smell the crickets in here...wtf....3 posts for our new guy?

We need some NYKMentality positivity up in here....I'll go...

Dude looks like the next Giannis!!!!

Giannis Antekompompo folks!!!!!!!

What a waste of genes. As a Pakistani man, I have the natural God given ability to do your taxes...or fix a computer....I can't imagine what I would do if I was a physical specimen like this guy, loving basketball the way I do.

The fact that I had to make this thread a day after we drafted him and no one cared to make one yesterday.

I dont think I've ever seen this in 20+ years on here. If we get a player in the draft, he gets his own thread. Period. Usually we have more than one person making a thread out of excitement.

I feel like there is something going in psychologically with this forum. It's not normal.

Also, with regard to NYKMentality, I don't know if it's just part of his twitter gimmick, but he is angry every single day over Thibs being fired and the positive NYKMentality we used to know no longer exists.

Read on Twitter

[MrDollarBills]

His measurables are exactly what we needed, but at age 20 he will need time to develop. These are the types of project players a team operating near the apron need to hit on.

[Iron Mantis]

Can he catch an alley-oop? Should be fine playing limited minutes against other team's benches. He should be good for a few defensive highlights and fast break points.... which we desperately need.

[3toheadmelo]

Man I can smell the crickets in here...wtf....3 posts for our new guy?

We need some NYKMentality positivity up in here....I'll go...

Dude looks like the next Giannis!!!!

Giannis Antekompompo folks!!!!!!!

What a waste of genes. As a Pakistani man, I have the natural God given ability to do your taxes...or fix a computer....I can't imagine what I would do if I was a physical specimen like this guy, loving basketball the way I do.

The fact that I had to make this thread a day after we drafted him and no one cared to make one yesterday.

I dont think I've ever seen this in 20+ years on here. If we get a player in the draft, he gets his own thread. Period. Usually we have more than one person making a thread out of excitement.

I feel like there is something going in psychologically with this forum. It's not normal.

Also, with regard to NYKMentality, I don't know if it's just part of his twitter gimmick, but he is angry every single day over Thibs being fired and the positive NYKMentality we used to know no longer exists.

Read on Twitter

Lmao his tweets are wild

[ctorres]

Just looked up his numbers and it’s awful. Probably not an NBA player

He’s 20 years old 6’8” and shot 38% from the field 31% from 3 and 48% from FT. I don’t care how good his defense is

Trevor Ariza shot 23.7% from three and 50.4% from the free throw line in college when we drafted him at #43

The last 619 games of his NBA career, Ariza shot 36% from three and 80% from the free throw line

It took Ariza until his 5th year in the NBA, playing a full season with the Lakers, to develop a reliable 3pt shot and free throw percentage above 70%. That was at 23 years old.

Ariza went on to spend an entire decade as a starting small forward on winning squads in LAL, NOH, WAS, and HOU. Lakers won the title, Wizards made the Semis, HOU made the semis three times (conference finals twice).

Larry Brown ruined it for us by getting Ariza traded for Steve Francis. Ariza could have spent his career with the Knicks, but we failed him. Hopefully we don't fail Diawara and give him every opportunity to develop with us. If we give Diawara all the tools to succeed and he still doesn't cut it in the NBA, well at least we tried.

[BKlutch]

His measurables are exactly what we needed, but at age 20 he will need time to develop. These are the types of project players a team operating near the apron need to hit on.

Can we pay him even less because we drafted him at #51 vs #50?

[jvsimonetti0514]

Just looked up his numbers and it’s awful. Probably not an NBA player

He’s 20 years old 6’8” and shot 38% from the field 31% from 3 and 48% from FT. I don’t care how good his defense is

IIRC there’s a rule of thumb when drafting European players and it’s if you’re probably a bust if you don’t average at least 10 ppg. So it’s probably not looking too good for our new friend Mohamed but I’ll hope for the best

[ctorres]

His measurables are exactly what we needed, but at age 20 he will need time to develop. These are the types of project players a team operating near the apron need to hit on.

Can we pay him even less because we drafted him at #51 vs #50?

It's the same minimum salary for 2nd round picks across the board unless a team chooses to pay them above that

Kolek for example, we decided to give him the most guaranteed money in the history of 2nd round picks

[HEZI]

Just looked up his numbers and it’s awful. Probably not an NBA player

He’s 20 years old 6’8” and shot 38% from the field 31% from 3 and 48% from FT. I don’t care how good his defense is

Trevor Ariza shot 23.7% from three and 50.4% from the free throw line in college when we drafted him at #43

The last 619 games of his NBA career, Ariza shot 36% from three and 80% from the free throw line

It took Ariza until his 5th year in the NBA, playing a full season with the Lakers, to develop a reliable 3pt shot and free throw percentage above 70%. That was at 23 years old.

Ariza went on to spend an entire decade as a starting small forward on winning squads in LAL, NOH, WAS, and HOU. Lakers won the title, Wizards made the Semis, HOU made the semis three times (conference finals twice).

Larry Brown ruined it for us by getting Ariza traded for Steve Francis. Ariza could have spent his career with the Knicks, but we failed him. Hopefully we don't fail Diawara and give him every opportunity to develop with us. If we give Diawara all the tools to succeed and he still doesn't cut it in the NBA, well at least we tried.

For every Ariza there are like 20 Ronaldo Balkman type of guys that get drafted in the late first or 2nd round and don’t even make it in the NBA. This dude is already older than Ariza was and has a better build yet shot an awful percentage from the field. That means he just doesn’t have an NBA skill set. Nobody 6’8” should be shooting 38% from the field in any league. This guy probably isn’t even as good as Maurice NDour and that guy sucked

[thebuzzardman]

Future bust

[BKlutch]

Just looked up his numbers and it’s awful. Probably not an NBA player

He’s 20 years old 6’8” and shot 38% from the field 31% from 3 and 48% from FT. I don’t care how good his defense is

Trevor Ariza shot 23.7% from three and 50.4% from the free throw line in college when we drafted him at #43

The last 619 games of his NBA career, Ariza shot 36% from three and 80% from the free throw line

It took Ariza until his 5th year in the NBA, playing a full season with the Lakers, to develop a reliable 3pt shot and free throw percentage above 70%. That was at 23 years old.

Ariza went on to spend an entire decade as a starting small forward on winning squads in LAL, NOH, WAS, and HOU. Lakers won the title, Wizards made the Semis, HOU made the semis three times (conference finals twice).

Larry Brown ruined it for us by getting Ariza traded for Steve Francis. Ariza could have spent his career with the Knicks, but we failed him. Hopefully we don't fail Diawara and give him every opportunity to develop with us. If we give Diawara all the tools to succeed and he still doesn't cut it in the NBA, well at least we tried.

For every Ariza there are like 20 Ronaldo Balkman type of guys that get drafted in the late first or 2nd round and don’t even make it in the NBA. This dude is already older than Ariza was and has a better build yet shot an awful percentage from the field. That means he just doesn’t have an NBA skill set. Nobody 6’8” should be shooting 38% from the field in any league. This guy probably isn’t even as good as Maurice NDour and that guy sucked

Maybe he can play the same role Ndour played for us. We can all get hyped and excited for him to play in SL and then he'll disappear before long and we'll find the next guy next year?

[ctorres]

For every Ariza there are like 20 Ronaldo Balkman type of guys that get drafted in the late first or 2nd round and don’t even make it in the NBA. This dude is already older than Ariza was and has a better build yet shot an awful percentage from the field. That means he just doesn’t have an NBA skill set. Nobody 6’8” should be shooting 38% from the field in any league. This guy probably isn’t even as good as Maurice NDour and that guy sucked

The 38% is skewed because almost half of Diawara's shot attempts last season were threes. 31% from three on 2.6 attempts per game is promising. 44.9% 2pt fg's is low, but we'll need shot charts to see where exactly he is lacking.

27 games may not be a big sample size, but looks like he had a sizeable role on a 21-9 European team this last season. 7th on the team in minutes per game even though his shot attempts were low compared to his teammates. He probably played a lot because of his defense.

https://www.basketball-reference.com/international/teams/cholet/2025.html

Couldn't get minutes his three previous seasons playing for Paris. I would ignore the Paris seasons (where he was just 15-18 years old) and treat his Cholet season as his first time getting consistent playing time.

https://www.basketball-reference.com/international/players/mohamed-diawara-1.html

Meanwhile, Ndour never showed the ability to make threes like Diawara prior to coming to the NBA

https://www.basketball-reference.com/international/players/maurice-ndour-1.html

[DOT]

I mean, he's the 51st pick

If he ever plays 10 mpg in a regular rotation role over a full season, that's fantastic for where we drafted him

What do y'all expect?

[KnicksGadfly]

This guy’s gonna take a while and clearly needs development.

The ones we should be excited about are Ariel, Kolek, and Dadiet. If the plan is going right, these guys should be able to take on some minutes soon.

[HEZI]

For every Ariza there are like 20 Ronaldo Balkman type of guys that get drafted in the late first or 2nd round and don’t even make it in the NBA. This dude is already older than Ariza was and has a better build yet shot an awful percentage from the field. That means he just doesn’t have an NBA skill set. Nobody 6’8” should be shooting 38% from the field in any league. This guy probably isn’t even as good as Maurice NDour and that guy sucked

The 38% is skewed because almost half of Diawara's shot attempts last season were threes. 31% from three on 2.6 attempts per game is promising. 44.9% 2pt fg's is low, but we'll need shot charts to see where exactly he is lacking.

27 games may not be a big sample size, but looks like he had a sizeable role on a 21-9 European team this last season. 7th on the team in minutes per game even though his shot attempts were low compared to his teammates. He probably played a lot because of his defense.

https://www.basketball-reference.com/international/teams/cholet/2025.html

Couldn't get minutes his three previous seasons playing for Paris. I would ignore the Paris seasons (where he was just 15-18 years old) and treat his Cholet season as his first time getting consistent playing time.

https://www.basketball-reference.com/international/players/mohamed-diawara-1.html

Meanwhile, Ndour never showed the ability to make threes like Diawara prior to coming to the NBA

https://www.basketball-reference.com/international/players/maurice-ndour-1.html

Chances are he never plays in the NBA and besides a SL jersey he will never play for the Knicks