Moose On The Loose: The Moussa Diabate Thread

[MasterIchiro]

That space below the tax is valuable. If they want to keep him on a 2-way they will just cut Jeffries instead of Taj, and sign a buyout player who plays C. They will buffer the cost of conversion by cobbling together minutes from Nurkic, Taj, and some salvage project like Bol Bol or Mo Bamba.

I'm confident Moussa will be stuck on a 2-way contract for next year.

[MasterIchiro]

Daniel Theis has been waived. I expect the Hornets to sign someone like him to play out the year so they can avoid a multiyear commitment to Moussa that pushes them closer to the tax.

[HornetJail]

If we penny pinch on Moose, we deserve to lose him. Give him every penny possible under the luxury tax and get him converted one way or the other.

I'm digging into the numbers a little, and we should have $2.88M under the luxury tax as of right now.

We should be looking to lock in a long-term cheap contract on Diabate, and that can only be done with the MLE/room exception. However due to that dumb trade involving all those Knicks players, we only have $1.16M left on the room exception.

Do you get to use a pro-rated amount when making that conversion late in the season? If so, my hope would be to lock him down on something like 4/16M (a little over 1M for the rest of this season, 5M for 3 future seasons), but I don't actually know whether that's possible.

If not, my understanding is that we'd only be able to give him a two-year min deal, but it would be nice to lock him down longer, and it sucks that our offseason pursuit of 2nds ruined that possibility.

[NMBSurfin]

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[wilson115]

Moussa era begins.

"You're in my world now, Vic."

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[Walt Cronkite]

Pay this kid asap.

[MPM]

9 points, 15 boards, 6 assists. Fantastic game against Wemby.

[fatlever]

Moose is the 2nd best defensive Center in the history of the franchise (based on their play in charlotte) behind only Zo

Based on feel o meter

Fats ranks def centers based on biased opinions. Excluding pfs playing center, like pj brown, grant, diaw Washington etc...

1. Zo
2. Moose
3. Campbell
4. Divac
5. Okafor - overrated def
6. Biz
7. Mark pre back injury
8. Dwight
9. Magloire
10. Frankencenter (chandler, Ratliff, diop)

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[KembaWalker]

its been over a decade and i'm still trying to figure out who gets credit for the 2013-2014 top 5 defense. just Cliff? lol

[EmpireFalls]

its been over a decade and i'm still trying to figure out who gets credit for the 2013-2014 top 5 defense. just Cliff? lol

I think the NBA just hadn’t really figured out how to shoot 3s back then. Genuinely it might be that simple. We packed the paint and had a lot of good rebounding but that defense would get lit up by any 2024 team.

MKG was incredible that year (60 ball from Melo and LeBron excluded) to be fair. Probably him.

[SWedd523]

I still think Moose is overrated and has an absolute ceiling as a backup

He's basically a more coordinated, faster twitch Biz, which is cool and all. but he's never going to be a starter

[MPM]

Moose is overrated

Congratulations on being the first human being on the planet to ever write these words.

[fatlever]

I still think Moose is overrated and has an absolute ceiling as a backup

He's basically a more coordinated, faster twitch Biz, which is cool and all. but he's never going to be a starter

overrated in the sense he should still be a backup/energy def big off bench. i dont see him as starter, long term.
but his defense is 100% legit. he covers so much space, has geat positional awareness, is tough, physical

[SWedd523]

I still think Moose is overrated and has an absolute ceiling as a backup

He's basically a more coordinated, faster twitch Biz, which is cool and all. but he's never going to be a starter

overrated in the sense he should still be a backup/energy def big off bench. i dont see him as starter, long term.
but his defense is 100% legit. he covers so much space, has geat positional awareness, is tough, physical

Yeah, sure, great he's fine as a backup, but the search for a legit starter has now been added to the litany of other holes that need fixing. In a world where good starters are few and far between, we traded ours for a double dip in one of the worst drafts in recent memory.

[Bassman]

Really love what Moose is bringing, but doesn’t eliminate the need to ultimately find a new starter. Sure, Moose could somehow develop a shot, gain better hands, etc. Hope he does as he brings SO MUCH TO THIS TEAM! It will be interesting to see how they position Nurkic and Moose on starting/minutes. Agree with others, find a way to lock him up on a cheap deal.

Wasting our cap space on the deals for seconds shows how stupid a GM can be. See what your situation is before you back yourself into corners unnecessarily.

[wilson115]

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[HornetJail]

I still think Moose is overrated and has an absolute ceiling as a backup

He's basically a more coordinated, faster twitch Biz, which is cool and all. but he's never going to be a starter

this is exactly my read on him, but he's definitely not overrated around the league because nobody knows who he is

I also like the Biz comparison except he is a more versatile defender rather than a rim protector.

I am, however, encouraged by the small improvements he's made offensively over the course of the season. His offense has looked less like the rookie Biz we saw early in the season, and more like mid-career Biz. Which isn't to say he's ever going to be *good* offensively, but he's definitely dropping less passes than he did three months ago. Still shouldn't ever try to dribble though.

[Snidely FC]

Moose may be the biggest loser from the Mark W trade recision.Now 2 other Centers to fight with for playing time.

[Walt Cronkite]

I would keep starting him and giving him starter’s minutes until someone else outplays him.

[MPM]

I would keep starting him and giving him starter’s minutes until someone else outplays him.

This. In terms of actually competing to win, Mark is not better than Moose at this point.