Off to his fifth team in five years, Ikechukwu Somtochukwu Diogu (or just Ike Diogu) has a new home and is back in the south with the New Orleans Hornets. Hopefully, he can bring his groupies above on the road with him for everybody’s sake. The 6-foot-9 forward will be used primarily as a back-up for All-Star forward David West. Diogu was traded in February of this year from the Portland Trail Blazers to the Sacramento Kings in exchange for Michael Ruffin. In his 10 games there, he averaged 9.2 points and 3.9 rebounds in just 14.2 minutes of action per game.
As first covered by Ted Jackson with The Times-Picayune, Diogu is really excited about his new opportunity in New Orleans and is out to prove why he was a lottery pick in 2005 by the Golden State Warriors. He is looking for some consistent playing time, which will help him get in the groove and not worry about being subbed out after 5 minutes. In his final two games for the Kings last season, he put up a career high 32 points and 11 rebounds and followed that up with 28 points and a career high 13 rebounds, while shooting 65% in 40.5 minutes of action. He hopes to carry that into this season and acknowledged that playing alongside the top point guard in the NBA, Chris Paul, should make that much easier.
Diogu first came onto the national basketball scene in 2002 at Arizona State. This hard-working blue-collar forward put up huge stats the second he stepped on the Tempe campus earning Pac-10 Freshman of the Year honors and a spot on the First Team All-Pac-10. He would go on to garner two more First Team All-Pac-10 honors and was named Pac-10 Player of the Year his junior year, which led to him declaring for the 2005 NBA Draft. He scored 22.6 and 22.8 points per game in his sophomore and junior seasons for the Sun Devils, which were tops in the Pac-10.
The terms of his contract, which was signed on Thursday, are not currently disclosed.
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