Knicks Hire DeSagana Diop To Head G League Team

The former lottery pick played for four teams in his 12-year NBA career.

The New York Knicks have hired NBA veteran DeSagana Diop to serve as the head coach of their G League squad in Westchester County. Diop is a former client of Knicks president Leon Rose, who represented Diop during a 12-year NBA career that began in Cleveland. 

Diop during the 2006 NBA Finals

Westchester Knicks

A native of Dakar, Senegal, Diop was chosen with the eighth overall pick in the 2001 draft after leading the renowned Oak Hill Academy (VA) to a perfect record in his senior season. Though Diop struggled to live up to his billing with the Cavaliers, he later found professional success when he signed with the Dallas Mavericks in 2005. Diop finished 11th in the league in blocks (146) during the 2005-06 season en route to an NBA Finals appearance. 

Such an ability helped him develop a cult following in Dallas, where he played three seasons before he was traded to the New Jersey Nets in February 2008. Though he briefly returned to the Mavericks in the following year, Diop ended his career with the Charlotte Bobcats, where he played parts of five seasons before retiring at the age of 31.

Since then, Diop gained coaching experience with the Texas Legends (Dallas G League affiliate), as well as the NBA's Utah Jazz and Houston Rockets. With the latter, where he served as an assistant coach under Stephen Silas, Diop became the first Senegal-born representative to hold a coach's role on an NBA bench. 

Diop will take over a Westchester team that finished 17-15 under previous coach Derrick Alston. The G League Knicks played last year's abbreviated slate at Total Mortgage Arena in Bridgeport, CT, as their regular home of Westchester County Center was being used as a COVID-19 vaccination site.

Diop isn't the only former NBA player the Knicks have hired lately. The team recently enlisted Hall-of-Fame inductee and old enemy Tim Hardaway to work in its scouting department.