Yesterday Keita Bates-Diop officially signed his first professional contract, a three year deal (with two years fully guaranteed, unusual for a low second round pick) that showed how invested the Minnesota Timberwolves are in his success and vice versa.
What's notable is that contract signing came after a really terrible first game of NBA's Summer League, with Keita only managing 9 points on 3-11 shooting, including only 1-7 from three, which also came along with 4 turnovers. Not only that, but the Timberwolves' loss to the Nuggets came in a particularly agonizing way for Keita:
The Nuggets built a 62-41 lead after three quarters but went cold as the Timberwolves outscored them by 20 in the fourth quarter, 28-8. Denver scored just six points in the final 5:41, the last on Malik Beasley's driving dunk with 1:54 remaining to lead 70-62. The Timberwolves kept chipping away, pulling to within one point on a two foul shots by Josh Okogie with 29 seconds remaining.
Minnesota then had one last chance with three seconds left, but Keita Bates-Diop's 37-footer missed at the buzzer.
Most of the knocks on KBD before the draft came from two directions: first was the concern over his size, with some saying that he's not big enough or strong enough to consistently get the kinds of rebounds or create the kinds of shots that he could at the college level. The second concern was that his lack of speed would make him a poor option to stretch the court. Today, halfway through his second Summer League game against the Toronto Raptors, those narratives seemed to be pretty sound.
Then KBD blew up.
Yeah, I mean, thatll work. https://t.co/PHUKDkXV38
— Ohio State Hoops (@OhioStateHoops) July 8, 2018
Keita Bates-Diop getting it done with the block on one end and the corner 3at the other!#NBASummer pic.twitter.com/WgmCMTsWPu
— NBA (@NBA) July 8, 2018
Thats one way to make your presence felt @KBD_33.
— Ohio State Hoops (@OhioStateHoops) July 8, 2018
33 led the way today as the @Timberwolves took down the @Raptors in the @NBASummerLeague
24pts | 11reb | 2ast | 1stl | 2blks#StatSheetStuffer #DevelopedHere pic.twitter.com/WzMh4upp3U
The stat line says it all, but Keita finished with a great game that was highly reminiscent of what we saw from the dude at Ohio State. Here's to KBD continuing his success for the rest of the summer and into the next season.
FINAL - @Timberwolves: 103 | @Raptors: 92
— NBA (@NBA) July 8, 2018
Keita Bates-Diop leads all scorers with 24 PTS and also adds on 3 3PTM & 11 REB. #NBASummer pic.twitter.com/apGfzya1ht
