The Minnesota Timberwolves have some problems. Sitting at 8-9, the Wolves are in a bad spot a little bit over a month into the season. Which is understandable, they made a huge trade that remade their team on September 27th, the Knicks have also had ups and downs. However, Minnesota is in a Western Conference where every game matters, they need to figure this out fast.
I hate to say it, but a lot of Minnesota’s problems can be traced back to Jaden McDaniels minutes, which have not been good. McDaniels was a fit with the build of this team with Karl-Anthony Towns on it, Towns provides better spacing than Julius Randle does in the starting lineup. In fact, in the playoffs last year, Minnesota was a noticeably better team with McDaniels on the floor vs. when he was off. The Wolves had a net rating of 6.4 in 537 minutes with McDaniels on the floor in the playoffs last year vs. a -1.9 net rating with him off the court. This season in 530 minutes with McDaniels on the court, Minnesota has a net rating of -4.7 with McDaniels off the court, in 297 minutes, their net rating is 11.9. Teams just don’t respect the three point shot, which is at 29.6% and by replacing Towns with Randle in the starting 5, Minnesota needs a better shooter in that spot. If you look at the Randle and Gobert pairing, they have been up and down but pretty average with a net rating of 2.3 in 366 minutes. If you add McDaniels to the mix, the net rating is -1.3 in 325 minutes, they are much better without McDaniels. Minnesota needs McDaniels to start hitting some shots.
This, of course, is not all on McDaniels, I think he is a good player who is having a bad season. Donte DiVincenzo has also not played well to start the season, shooting 35% from the field and just 32% from 3 after shooting 40% from 3 last year and 43% in the playoffs. Mike Conley has been in and out of the lineup as well and he is shooting just 39% from the field this season. Minnesota has gotten good production from Nickeil Alexander-Walker and Naz Reid this season and 8th overall pick Rob Dillingham has played well the past 2 games but Minnesota needs McDaniels, Conley and DiVincenzo to play better because of how integral to their team those three guys are.
The biggest issue with the Timberwolves is that their defense has not been up to the standard it was last season. Last season, Cleaning the Glass (which filters out garbage time) had them at 108.9 defensive rating or points given up per 100 possessions, the best in the league. This season, they are 112.9, 10th in the league. After they were the best in defending the rim last season giving up 59% on shots under 6 feet, Minnesota is allowing teams to shoot 64% in those same shots which is in the bottom half of the league. Rudy Gobert’s block percentage is also down from 3.2% last year to 2.3% this year. Gobert has not been the same presence he was a season ago, which is another thing that needs to change if the Wolves are gonna turn this around.
The Timberwolves have a lot of problems right now, thankfully Anthony Edwards is not one of them. The engine of Minnesota’s offense is having another monster season averaging a career high 28.0 points per game on shooting splits of .47/.43/.81 also all career highs. Edwards is scoring at a level of efficiency that we haven’t seen from him during his career yet so if Minnesota is gonna turn this around, he will need to continue to play at this high level.
The Timberwolves are at an impasse. After what was a wildly successful year with a disappointing ending last season, the Wolves are sitting at just .500. The defense has to be the strong point of this team, specifically the rim protection and it has not been. They need their role players to play better as well. It is getting close to gut check time for the Wolves.
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