All Things 2025-2026 Minnesota Timberwolves In-Season Thread

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Shoot, I kept nodding off during this one. Thought Clark would have gotten more minutes. (Edit:brain dead. I looked at points and thought it was minutes)
Did watch the 1st quarter of the Houston/Cleveland game. Thought the Rockets looked good.
 
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fan of Ray Williams said:
Shoot, I kept nodding off during this one. Thought Clark would have gotten more minutes. (Edit:brain dead. I looked at points and thought it was minutes)
Did watch the 1st quarter of the Houston/Cleveland game. Thought the Rockets looked good.
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Did you look at ESPN box score? They recently changed the order and it's got me all screwed up
 




tikited said:
Dilly just can't shoot.
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His shooting form from distance is so wonky that it's impossible for him to replicate it consistently. He seems to release the ball as part of his jumping motion which resembles a 12 year old not strong enough to release the shot once in the air.

I'm not holding out much hope that he'll ever be more than an average backup PG in this league.
 

Slim Tubby said:
His shooting form from distance is so wonky that it's impossible for him to replicate it consistently. He seems to release the ball as part of his jumping motion which resembles a 12 year old not strong enough to release the shot once in the air.

I'm not holding out much hope that he'll ever be more than an average backup PG in this league.
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Weight room time. Until then he's going to have to live in mid range world
 

tikited said:
Dilly just can't shoot.
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They drafted him as one of the best shooters in the draft.

It's too bad, because if he could shoot, he'd be a force. He can get his shoot rather easily.
 
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4 of the next 5 games are against teams with winning records. Edwards and the shooting slump might have to part ways.
 

There is lots of speculation that Connelly covets Kyrie Irving should the Mavs continue to poop the bed and make him available.

Naz and Dilly for Irving...would you do it if that's all it would take? I've never been a fan of the guy who believed the Earth was flat.
 

Slim Tubby said:
There is lots of speculation that Connelly covets Kyrie Irving should the Mavs continue to poop the bed and make him available.

Naz and Dilly for Irving...would you do it if that's all it would take? I've never been a fan of the guy who believed the Earth was flat.
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Pass unless we're getting draft capital in that deal (not going to happen as I'd expect Dallas would demand the opposite). He's 33 and coming off a major knee injury and has had prior history of knee and shoulder surgery. That said, he has always been one of my favorite players to watch with the ball. he does many things few guys can and has the ability to take over games when he wants which would be a plus on this team if he's still able to get to that level.
tbh i actually expect more that the Mavs hold him out this year, tank, and enter a pretty strong draft class looking to rebuild around Flagg (Naz and Dilly don't help that) and to move AD and/or Kyrie for picks given they're currently hard capped at the 2nd apron with injury prone aging stars and a way past his prime Klay Thompson. They're so far from contending that they'd be wise to find a buyer if they can to try reload like OKC did and pick accumulate heavily
 
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tikited said:
Dilly just can't shoot.
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As the cliche goes, he's two years away from being two years away. He tried to shoot the Wizards into a comeback last night. He must lead the league in blocked shot attempts per minute.
 



upnorthkid said:
Pass unless we're getting draft capital in that deal (not going to happen as I'd expect Dallas would demand the opposite). He's 33 and coming off a major knee injury and has had prior history of knee and shoulder surgery. That said, he has always been one of my favorite players to watch with the ball. he does many things few guys can and has the ability to take over games when he wants which would be a plus on this team if he's still able to get to that level.
tbh i actually expect more that the Mavs hold him out this year, tank, and enter a pretty strong draft class looking to rebuild around Flagg (Naz and Dilly don't help that) and to move AD and/or Kyrie for picks given they're currently hard capped at the 2nd apron with injury prone aging stars and a way past his prime Klay Thompson. They're so far from contending that they'd be wise to find a buyer if they can to try reload like OKC did and pick accumulate heavily
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Great player. Hard pass. I think the wolves have a pretty good locker room compared to most NBA locker rooms. If you subtract Naz and add 33 year old Kyrie who might not want to defer to Ant, then you are asking for chemistry combustion. At 33, coming off of major knee surgery, the Kyrie magic will be good enough for kids birthday parties but not good enough for Vegas shows.
 

jamiche said:
Great player. Hard pass. I think the wolves have a pretty good locker room compared to most NBA locker rooms. If you subtract Naz and add 33 year old Kyrie who might not want to defer to Ant, then you are asking for chemistry combustion. At 33, coming off of major knee surgery, the Kyrie magic will be good enough for kids birthday parties but not good enough for Vegas shows.
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Kyrie is still a superstar talent. That being said, this trade idea is very, very short sighted. If he wasn't injury prone, he wouldn't even be considered for a trade. Hard pass.
 

Slim Tubby said:
There is lots of speculation that Connelly covets Kyrie Irving should the Mavs continue to poop the bed and make him available.

Naz and Dilly for Irving...would you do it if that's all it would take? I've never been a fan of the guy who believed the Earth was flat.
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I do that trade in 2 seconds. If it doesn't work, oh well

But it gets us out of the Naz Reid, 125 million contract.

I'd do this in two seconds.
 
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kg21 said:
I do that trade in 2 seconds. If it doesn't work, oh well

But it gets us out of the nap Reid, 125 million contract.

I'd do this in two seconds.
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Obviously, he has serious injury concerns and is a bit of a flake but the guy is just so talented, maybe one of the best handles in league history.

Looks really good on paper:

C Gobert/Beringer/Sikorsky
PF Randle/Shannon Jr.
SF McDaniels/Clark
SG Edwards/DDV
PG Irving/Conley/Hyland

I'd probably roll the dice but can certainly understand why others would hate it, too.
 

Nickeil Alexander-Walker broke his personal best scoring record tonight with 38 on 10-15 in a loss to the Spurs. Previous best was a surprising 37 his 2nd year in the league. He was 8-10 on 3's. Shooting 30% on 3's this year compared to his career average of 35.7%
 

fan of Ray Williams said:
Nickeil Alexander-Walker broke his personal best scoring record tonight with 38 on 10-15 in a loss to the Spurs. Previous best was a surprising 37 his 2nd year in the league. He was 8-10 on 3's. Shooting 30% on 3's this year compared to his career average of 35.7%
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The thought was Shannon Jr could walk in and take his place.

Ah, oooooops!
 

After a rough start, Phoenix has went 8-2 in their last 10 in a similar path as the Wolves. Beating teams with losing records, although one win was against the Spurs with Wemby. Something has to give tonight. Suns last played on Tuesday.
Showing Shannon still out and McDaniels and Ingles day to day. (Jingles might need another game off after playing 6:50 against Dallas.)
 

In case people were wondering how bad the Dilly minutes have been

The second-year guard is shooting 39% overall, 23% from 3 and is being outscored by 14 points per 100 possessions in the Timberwolves more than 100 minutes with him on the court -- a staggering 24-point swing from the plus-10 net rating they have in the over 500 minutes with him on the bench.
 


Slim Tubby said:
Obviously, he has serious injury concerns and is a bit of a flake but the guy is just so talented, maybe one of the best handles in league history.

Looks really good on paper:

C Gobert/Beringer/Sikorsky
PF Randle/Shannon Jr.
SF McDaniels/Clark
SG Edwards/DDV
PG Irving/Conley/Hyland

I'd probably roll the dice but can certainly understand why others would hate it, too.
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One the trade isn't possible as we can't take in more cap than we send out, so we'd have to attach something else/move the money around there.

the kicker to all of these things is what does it do to your cap long term and how does it set you up to compete with OKC, knowing our best window is going to be starting next year and even better 27-28 (its when all the maxes start to hit at their much higher dollar thresholds, Dort's contract is up, etc).

the team above on paper doesn't beat OKC (starting 5 will hang in there, but that bench gets just wrecked) and ties you over 100million into guys over 30, including a Rudy on the down swing and an injury prone Kyrie for another year. Add in Ant and Jaden and your starting 5 costs you ~175mil. Just fences us into the lack of flexibility to make moves to jump up another tier or have any amount of quality depth. I think Naz's contract is going to end up being very tradeable as an asset as it goes along. The cap jumps 12 mil next year, 8 the year after, and 9 the year after so him sitting at 14% of cap for a guy who will be right near 30 at the tail end of the deal

just a firm believer that if you're going "win now" that's around building enough depth around Ant and one other secondary star (Julius fits this fine) by compiling defenders and shooters. The cap punishes you way too much now trying to accumulate more "stars" to where you have no depth and get run ragged in the postseason. It's part of why I've found it painful we haven't really done anything to accumulate younger talent that's on Ant's timeline (still crazy he's only 24) to develop on good contracts. Give me a PG who distributes the ball but can get to the hoop when you need him to and plays great defense any day over Kyrie who can score in bunches but you need to protect on the other end at his age
 
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Need Edwards to revert back to the mean tonight. He's on a stretch of 3 for 32 behind the arc. Nasty shooting slump. Since the Utah game, when he went 5 of 9, it's been a progression towards really bad shooting. Need Clark to pick up the pace offensively also.
 

upnorthkid said:
One the trade isn't possible as we can't take in more cap than we send out, so we'd have to attach something else/move the money around there.

the kicker to all of these things is what does it do to your cap long term and how does it set you up to compete with OKC, knowing our best window is going to be starting next year and even better 27-28 (its when all the maxes start to hit at their much higher dollar thresholds, Dort's contract is up, etc).

the team above on paper doesn't beat OKC (starting 5 will hang in there, but that bench gets just wrecked) and ties you over 100million into guys over 30, including a Rudy on the down swing and an injury prone Kyrie for another year. Add in Ant and Jaden and your starting 5 costs you ~175mil. Just fences us into the lack of flexibility to make moves to jump up another tier or have any amount of quality depth. I think Naz's contract is going to end up being very tradeable as an asset as it goes along. The cap jumps 12 mil next year, 8 the year after, and 9 the year after so him sitting at 14% of cap for a guy who will be right near 30 at the tail end of the deal

just a firm believer that if you're going "win now" that's around building enough depth around Ant and one other secondary star (Julius fits this fine) by compiling defenders and shooters. The cap punishes you way too much now trying to accumulate more "stars" to where you have no depth and get run ragged in the postseason. It's part of why I've found it painful we haven't really done anything to accumulate younger talent that's on Ant's timeline (still crazy he's only 24) to develop on good contracts. Give me a PG who distributes the ball but can get to the hoop when you need him to and plays great defense any day over Kyrie who can score in bunches but you need to protect on the other end at his age
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All of this is true, yet, this team has zero chance of getting past OKC and DEN as currently constructed and That's not changing anytime soon. That's a compliment to those two (2) teams and not a rip on Connelly.

Ja Morant, LaMelo Ball, Trae Young and Kyrie Irving are all rumored to be available. All four (4) of them have major flaws whether it's injuries, age, shitty contract or too ball dominant to be a good match for Ant. I could make a strong case to avoid all of them.

With that said, if our goal is to be satisfied just making the playoffs, stand your ground. If you want a shot at the Title, you're going to have to roll the dice at some point and hope it doesn't come up craps.

Derrick White continues to be my personal favorite as the best PG for this roster but he would almost certainly cost us McDaniels. Even without Tatum, BOS most likely makes the playoffs in the EC so they might not be motivated to blow it up.

I also like the long-term potential of Ivey with DET. They need size and maybe a deal featuring Naz for Ivey+ is a possibility. Of course, once again, a deal like that would crush our frontcourt depth and just fill one roster hole while creating another.

The frustrations and unreasonable lack of patience for fans like me marches on...
 

upnorthkid said:
Said this from day 1 of the move and was told it wouldn’t be an issue
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I know we were forced to let NAW walk in order to keep Naz but imagine how different this team would be with him playing all of the Dilly and Conley minutes for this team. NAW was always a good fit next to Ant defensively, too.
 

Dillingham doesn’t understand how to play basketball it’s that simple.. Dillingham thinks he knows how to play basketball that is his problem.. That is why he struggles and plays trash minutes…
 

fan of Ray Williams said:
Need Edwards to revert back to the mean tonight. He's on a stretch of 3 for 32 behind the arc. Nasty shooting slump. Since the Utah game, when he went 5 of 9, it's been a progression towards really bad shooting. Need Clark to pick up the pace offensively also.
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The headline in the star and tribune sports section today is a photo of Ant and the phrase:

MV Pretender

OUCH!
 

Slim Tubby said:
All of this is true, yet, this team has zero chance of getting past OKC and DEN as currently constructed and That's not changing anytime soon. That's a compliment to those two (2) teams and not a rip on Connelly.

Ja Morant, LaMelo Ball, Trae Young and Kyrie Irving are all rumored to be available. All four (4) of them have major flaws whether it's injuries, age, shitty contract or too ball dominant to be a good match for Ant. I could make a strong case to avoid all of them.

With that said, if our goal is to be satisfied just making the playoffs, stand your ground. If you want a shot at the Title, you're going to have to roll the dice at some point and hope it doesn't come up craps.

Derrick White continues to be my personal favorite as the best PG for this roster but he would almost certainly cost us McDaniels. Even without Tatum, BOS most likely makes the playoffs in the EC so they might not be motivated to blow it up.

I also like the long-term potential of Ivey with DET. They need size and maybe a deal featuring Naz for Ivey+ is a possibility. Of course, once again, a deal like that would crush our frontcourt depth and just fill one roster hole while creating another.

The frustrations and unreasonable lack of patience for fans like me marches on...
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you've described the difficulty incredibly well. they're close, but the gap between 1 is big and then secondary also rans Denver has an MVP as their lead guy. Ant's not quite there yet and so it is really hard to accept that that unless you're trading for the future to grow into a guy to play alongside Ant, you're not really helping yourself.

OKC was turrible SGAs first 3 years in the league and used those drafts to build up depth players and the ancillary guys you need around superstar to win now. Boston had to wait until you got Brown and Tatum into their 6th and 7th years together and got to win a cheap title in a year everyone else either blew it or got hurt.

It's really tough, but lots to be optimistic about when your star player is really really good and hasn't even hit his prime yet. roster is best looked in a win soon mindset than a win now
 

Slim Tubby said:
I know we were forced to let NAW walk in order to keep Naz but imagine how different this team would be with him playing all of the Dilly and Conley minutes for this team. NAW was always a good fit next to Ant defensively, too.
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I miss NAW so much. TSJ can't do anything as well as NAW.
 

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