The Timberwolves Pulled Off a HEIST…

The Timberwolves Pulled Off a HEIST…

Rob Dillingham was widely considered to be one of the most talented players of the 2024 draft class in the Minnesota Timberwolves made an aggressive move to use a 2031 first round pick in a 2030 pick swap to go out and grab his draft rights from the San Antonio Spurs after an already great season last year this move might just be enough to get them back to the Western Conference finals and maybe even put them over the top this video is sponsored by Squarespace but a little bit more about them later making this move to bring in Rob Dillingham directly addresses a lot of the problems that we saw the Timberwolves run into during their postseason run dillingham’s skill set is a perfect fit to fill some of the holes that the Timberwolves have the 6 foot2 guard out of Kentucky is a ridiculously fast downhill scorer he definitely fits that mold of super athletic Kentucky guard that we’ve seen have success in the NBA time and time again during his own only year in college he averaged 15.2 points and 3.9 assists per game on 59.5% true shooting on a whopping 30.3% usage rate and he also shot 44.4% from three on 144 total attempts just at a glance those box score numbers look pretty good for a high usage undersized guard but then you look how he was going about getting these buckets and there’s even more reasons to be excited assuming he’ll be coming off the bench in year 1 behind Mike Conley he’s going to be the exact scoring punch that the Timberwolves desperately need he has zero issue making use of ball screens to dribble into his spots for pull-up jumpers and he makes them at a really high rate as a whole Dillingham scored one point per possession as the pick and roll ball handler ranking in the 89th percentile shooting 54.2% from inside the ark and 42.9% from three you really can’t ask for much more than that being able to put Dillingham out there with predominantly bench lineups will allow the Timberwolves to still have that defensive identity while still holding water offensively even when they don’t have Anthony Edwards or Mike Conley on the floor in the 184 possessions during the playoffs where the Timberwolves didn’t have Anthony Edwards on the floor they clocked an abysmal offensive rating of 16.5 points per 100 possessions there’s no doubt in my mind that you can throw Dy out there for those 184 possessions and Minnesota’s offense is going to be in much better shape as a byproduct of having a guy like Dillingham that’s able to create offense for himself additionally I think that this is going to allow Mike connley to enjoy a bit more rest than he was able to get during the regular season and the playoffs Conley was still playing roughly 32 minutes a night during the postseason and that’s a lot of mileage to be putting on a 36-year-old player that’s about to be 37 now with with Dillingham he can alleviate some of that load and the Timberwolves can hopefully preserve Conley for longer one of the main reasons as to why Dillingham is going to be such a huge help for Minnesota is the amount of pressure that he’s capable of putting on the rim dribble penetration is something that the Timberwolves are often times lacking in but fortunately it’s something that Dillingham excels at Dillingham is an extremely crafty ball handler and when you pair that with his foot speed it makes it really difficult for Defenders to stay in front of him not to mention he’s got really great footwork so once he generates that paint touch he’s able to develop it further by shaking guys out of their shoes and creating wide open looks for himself at The Rim coming off of these drives this Rim pressure is going to be great because with Anthony Edwards on the floor the Timberwolves had a shot frequency at the rim of 36.9% which is in the 89th percentile in frequency but when he was off the floor that Rim frequency dropped down to 32 .3% which ranks in the 44th percentile shots at The Rim are still the most valuable field goals in basketball and the more the Timberwolves are able to get to the rim even while ant is on the bench the better real quick I want to take a second to tell you guys about the sponsor of today’s video Squarespace Squarespace is the all-in-one website platform for creators to set themselves apart from the crowd online whether you’re trying to share your work with more people or grow a brand Squarespace makes it super simple to create an awesome website where you can engage with your audience and reach more people I have absolutely zero web design experience but Squarespace is simple and easy to ous user interface takes out all of the frustration of building a website and turns it into an easy and fun process you can make a completely personalized website with their guided design system Squarespace blueprint you can choose from professionally curated layout and styling options to build a unique website from the ground up and they make it super easy to manage your search engine optimization so that you can find your 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playmaker during his time in college we’ve already seen that he can score in the pick and role and he’s fully capable of facilitating to his teammates when he’s drawing to on the ball in the pick and roll so it’s not going to be as simple as throwing him off by sending a hedge or a blitz at him he can create high value looks by hitting tough skip passes to weak corners and as long as the Timberwolves do a good job of surrounding him with knockdown guys when he’s on the floor they should be able to generate some pretty good offense the driving ability that he’s displayed makes it to where defenses are almost always going to have to rely on their backline help defense to make sure that he doesn’t get a clean look at the basket but he’s capable of threading the needle through tight passing windows and he reads defenses well when they’re sending that backline help onto him this really simplifies a lot of Minnesota’s bench offense instead of having to try and get overly creative with their half court sets or just simply praying that somebody somehow creates a good look they can really strip things down put the ball in Rob’s hand hands and rely on his scoring threat to open up everything else for them and I’ve spent most of this video talking about Dillingham operating in more of a bench roll but I’m not ruling out the possibility of him ultimately playing a bigger role as a starter for this team in the long run you look at what he was doing when operating in an off ball role with Kentucky and there’s really not many reasons as to why he wouldn’t be able to run with the starters he was an excellent shooter in a spot up role scoring 1.3 points per possession on spot UPS last year and that included 54.2% on spot up 3es you pair this ability to be an elite knockdown shooter with the fact that he can drive off of aggressive Closeouts and create for himself at the rim and you’ve got the recipe for an awesome guard to pair alongside Anthony Edwards if Anthony Edwards is operating as a lead facilitator which we know is something Minnesota has been experimenting with and prioritizing over the last few years there is an El in the room when it comes to Rob Dillingham though and that’s his defense regardless of how good you are as a Defender there’s only so much you’re going to be able to do if you’re undersized with a few exceptions Dillingham is not a great defender and I would argue he’s not even a good Defender but when it comes to prospects like this you’ve got to consider the context that they’re going to be going into Minnesota was the best defense in the NBA last year they’ve got the infrastructure in place already to continue to be an elite defense they didn’t lose players in this deal to bring Rob Dillingham in so that defensive Firepower is still going to be there for the most part obviously we’ll have to see how free agency shakes out for them for as good as Minnesota was defensively it’s all about balance it makes sense for them to sacrifice a little bit defensively if it means addressing some of the areas where they’re deficient offensively Dillingham isn’t going to be a lock down Defender and he’s going to have his fair share of weaknesses that teams are going to be looking to exploit but the Timberwolves have the Personnel to surround him with to minimize how exploitable those weaknesses are and the impact that his offense is likely going to have will outway what you lose defensively the Timberwolves are a team with a relatively High payroll right now and they were going to have a very tough time making trades in signings through free agency with their current cap situation the fact that they were able to bring in that shot creating microwave score that they so desperately needed without having to give up any players in the process is an absolutely brilliant move and the positive impacts from this trade should be felt in Minnesota for a very long time really hope you guys enjoyed this video if you want to see more stuff like this be sure to subscribe leave a like it seriously helps me out so much thank you guys for watching and I’ll see you in the next one [Music]

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The Minnesota Timberwolves traded for the draft rights to Rob Dillingham with the San Antonio Spurs, securing one of the most talented players of the 2024 NBA Draft class.

Rob Dillingham had a stellar year with the University of Kentucky, and now he’s heading to Minnesota to play alongside Anthony Edwards, Rudy Gobert, and Karl Anthony Towns.

Rob Dillingham will likely be coming off the bench behind Mike Conley in year one, but he’s the perfect microwave scorer off the bench to give them exactly what they need.

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