After first segment of the season, the Timberwolves must regroup 

Minnesota Timberwolves coach Chris Finch likes to chop 82-game NBA seasons into 20-game segments. (Presumably the extra game or two can be pushed into the garbage disposal, set on a pedestal or otherwise wielded to strengthen a prevailing narrative.)

On Monday night the Wolves drained the resolve out of the weary Los Angeles Lakers for their largest margin of victory thus far this season,109-80, to close out Finch’s first segment with a record of 10-10. That watermark of mediocrity meets the eye test for this fitful autumn of hoops and falls well below the Wolves’ level of expectation after last year’s plucky crew suffocated foes to the tune of 16 wins in the opening 20 contests, providing a preview of the formula that would eventually propel them into the Western Conference Finals.

After Minnesota rallied to beat the Denver Nuggets in the fifth game of the season on Nov. 1, I proclaimed these 2024-25 Timberwolves to be the most enjoyably compelling and insightful collection of players I’ve covered since 1990. Hah. Three weeks later, the team dramatized their dysfunction when forward Julius Randle refused to pass the ball to center Rudy Gobert, who was well-positioned in front of the basket. Gobert then sulked his way into a three-second violation, an unprofessional snit that was the catalytic lowlight in a desultory loss to the dreadful Toronto Raptors.

That initiated a four-game losing streak, which culminated when the Wolves allowed the Sacramento Kings to score on 11 straight possessions in the fourth quarter, transforming a 12-point lead into an 11-point defeat. In the locker room afterwards, Wolves star Anthony Edwards called out the entire team, himself included, for being “internally soft” and “frontrunners” who ignore coaching instructions and break off into their own agendas.

If you’re into gawker slowdowns, these incidents were indeed enjoyably compelling and insightful.

But on a more serious note, Ant’s scathing, free-style comments, delivered on Thanksgiving Eve, when his teammates had extraordinary leeway to digest and reflect on them, were a tonic. At 23, Ant is never less than himself, reliant on his profound intuition and abiding goodwill to charm his message. He approached the task of dressing down the roster as unpleasant but unavoidable, an inevitable onus arriving like a bad baptism of locker-room leadership for the young superstar. He was transparent about his perplexity as well as his frustration, which leavened the acid without totaling dissolving the sting of his words.

The Randle and Gobert contretemps also had a silver lining of sorts, as it preempted the festering of tensions between the mismatched duo. Randle is a ball-centric playmaker and too-frequently indifferent defender who requires the spotlight to thrive on offense and the ability to disappear, or at least be hidden, at the other end of the court. 

Gobert regally reigns as the scolding lord of team defense but is too-often betrayed by stone hands and stumblebum footwork more than six feet away from the basket at his other end of the court.

Blending the converse skill sets of the current frontcourt starters into complementary synergy at both ends of the court feels like one of the more intractable dilemmas facing the Wolves through the remaining three segments of their season. Frankly, this has been evident since Randle was acquired along with guard Donte DiVincenzo and a protected first-round pick in exchange for sending Karl-Anthony Towns to the Knicks just a few days before the start of preseason training camp.

I’ve broken down how and why Randle is a poor fit for the Wolves both on the court and on the salary cap. Playing beside the starters, he eats space and touches in the half court that is already having to negotiate Gobert’s presence in the paint, Ant’s need for capacious maneuverability and the team’s appropriate reliance on Mike Conley setting the tone and tenor of play. And on defense, he’s not reliable enough on switches or in low-man rotations for Gobert to trust him and not enough of a rim protector to occupy KAT’s former role as the backup center as well as the starting power forward.

None of this is necessarily Randle’s fault. President of Basketball Operations Tim Connelly made the trade to get off KAT’s supermax contract and to acquire more point guard depth behind Conley with DiVincenzo. It was hoped that the mutual admiration and positive past between Finch and Randle would mitigate the miscasting.

An obvious option would be to have Naz Reid instead of Randle inhabit KAT’s former role. If the Wolves want to re-stake their identity as a top NBA defense, the Gobert-Naz pairing has a proven track record. Last season the Wolves allowed just 99.4 points per 100 possessions in the 917 minutes the two shared the court, the stingiest defense produced by any pair who logged at least 400 minutes together. 

This season’s encore has again been impressive: Gobert and Naz have allowed just 100.2 points per 100 possessions in248 minutes, the second-best of any pairing over 200 minutes, behind just Gobert and Nickeil Alexander-Walker, who are ceding 95.8 points per 100 possessions in their 305 minutes of shared time.

By contrast, the Wolves give up 109.1 points per 100 possessions in the 430 minutes Gobert and Randle are together thus far this season. And in the 233 minutes Naz and Randle take turns trying to be the backup center and power forward alongside each other, the Wolves yield 115.2 points per 100 possessions, the leakiest defense of any pair sharing time for at least 200 minutes.

Yes, the Wolves score at a higher rate when Randle is Gobert’s frontcourt mate compared to when Naz is out there with Rudy. But the 3.5 point per 100 possessions difference is not enough to compensate for the 8.9 point rise in opponents points per 100 possessions.

So why are the Wolves enduring this injurious status quo?

Because Randle is a proud veteran in his 10th NBA season whose current contract expires this season unless he exercises a player option to return to the Wolves for $31 million next year. Coming off the bench could damage his future financial security as well as bruise his pride.

Also, just because he’s a bad fit doesn’t mean Randle is chopped liver. He’s a three-time All Star who can get you a bucket on his own in tough situations. If he is disillusioned, it diminishes his scoring prowess — and, down the road a ways, his trade value.

Then there is the fact that switching the roles of Naz and Randle doesn’t eliminate the problem of them having to play together when Gobert heads to the bench. And such a significant change is less appetizing when it only addresses half the problem.

Last but not least, Finch and Connelly don’t consider Randle’s defense a lost cause. They can point to how they rehabilitated KAT’s dubious reputation on defense and found a way to legitimately make him valuable at both ends of the court. Finch and Randle still have a high level of mutual respect. And Randle still needs to play well, at both ends, to earn a better contract than his current deal.

So, hey, the sky isn’t falling. Since Ant called out the squad after the pratfall against Sacramento the Wolves have put the clamps on both Los Angeles teams, the Clippers and Lakers, allowing a combined 172 points. Their defensive rating of 90.1 points allowed per 100 possessions in those games is nearly five points better than anyone else — shades of last season’s suffocation! — moving them up to seventh in defensive rating for the season at 110 points allowed.

Randle was on the floor for nearly 55 of those 96 minutes in the past two games, and the Wolves allowed just 91.7 points per 100 possessions in that time. Tiny sample size makes for tenuous hope, but it’s enough to extend the current arrangement.

Getting the most out of the three-player frontcourt rotation of Gobert, Randle and Naz is the biggest x factor for the team’s prospects for the rest of this season. But a second abiding issue is how they handle the point-guard duties when Conley sits.

Since Connelly was hired as POBO in May 2022, he and Finch have credibly had each other’s backs, presenting a staunch united front regarding roster construction and player usage. It has provided stability to a franchise that was one of the worst-run organizations in team sports before they arrived.

If there is an apparent source of disagreement between them, it would be how each regards the current value of rookie Rob Dillingham. After he made the unprecedented (and genuinely brilliant) move of trading a 2031 draft pick for the right to draft Dillingham 8th overall this season, Connelly was exhausted, ebullient and over-the-top optimistic about Dillingham’s instant impact. He claimed that there was no need to protect the 165-pound teenager trying to defend pick-and-rolls in the NBA, that he could be “thrown in the pool” and challenged to succeed.

But during the NBA Summer League, Dillingham was overmatched at times at both ends of the court — an ominous occurrence given that Summer League personnel is primarily comprised of fringe NBA players. When I asked Finch what he expected from the rookie during our long conversation between Summer League and preseason camp, he said, “What is reasonable is that he plays well one out of three nights. And then you hope one of those other two nights you don’t notice him and then of course he is going to have that not-so-good third night.”

Along with salary cap considerations, the main reason KAT was traded was because DiVincenzo could provide insurance as the backup point guard and allow Dillingham to develop at comfortable pace for both his future development and the Wolves immediate needs as a championship contender. Kudos to Connelly for leaning in to Finch’s assessment (and perhaps his own after coming down from the high of draft night).

Except that the Wolves’ point-guard situation has been an unexpected vulnerability through the first segment of this season. After a fantastic preseason running the offense, DiVincenzo hid the skids on a fairly regular basis once the games began to matter. Opponents filled the passing lanes, making his turnovers especially costly, and the ball-handling mistakes began to affect his shot accuracy.

Per basketball-reference.com, DiVincenzo hadn’t logged more than a third of his minutes at point guard since his second season in 2019-20. Thus far this season, 65% of his time has been at the point. In the Wolves 10 losses, he has 29 assists, 19 turnovers and a horrid true shooting percentage 43.2. In Minnesota’s 10 wins, he has 43 assists, 16 turnovers and a true shooting percentage of 56.7. It is one of the biggest discrepancies between performances in wins and losses on the roster. Bottom line, when DDV is humming, the Wolves’ chances of winning soar.

Like DiVincenzo, Alexander-Walker is a capable ball-handler and distributor as a shooting guard, but able to be exploited when he needs to operate at the point. Every fan base loves a talented, young, fresh new face, and there is a bandwagon rolling for Dillingham, who has occasionally flashed the electricity that besotted Connelly on draft night. 

Finch, who routinely acknowledges that Dillingham can foster an elevated pace in the offense that is sorely needed by the Wolves, has been roundly, and loudly, criticized for chaining the rook to the bench when Conley sits and both DDV and NAW flounder. And there are occasions when their second-guessing has seemed appropriate.

But Finch has also adroitly protected Dillingham from being singed on defense while being able to trounce slower guards with his athleticism. The two games where Dilly has shone the brightest have been against short, long-range marksmen like Boston’s Payton Pritchard and Houston’s Fred Van Vleet, both of whom play hard but not nearly quick enough to handle Dillingham off the bounce.

After some minor injuries marred his first two weeks of the season, Conley is healthy and slowly returning to his vintage form—a huge and necessary development if the Wolves have any chance of postseason success. Meanwhile, DDV had his best game of the season on Monday, posting nine assists without a turnover and continuing the recent upgrade in his shooting accuracy. NAW continues to be the most consistent player on the roster, a marvelous, steady contributor at both ends of the court.

And Dillingham? He provides tantalizing peeks into the future for these Wolves. But short of an astounding improvement in his defensive awareness and physique (the first somewhat possible, the second a years-long process), the Wolves simply can’t afford to have him learn on the job at such an important position.

As everyone predicted at the start of the season, the Western Conference is loaded, having won more than 60% of the games against the Eastern Conference (50-33), at the start of this week.

As of Tuesday morning, the Wolves 10-10 record wouldn’t even get them into the play-in tournament, where teams finishing 7-10 in the conference joust for the final two of eight playoff spots. Minnesota is 11th . They have played a relatively easy Schedule — 20th among the 30 NBA teams in terms of strength, according to basketball-reference.com — and they have enjoyed remarkably good health among the eight players who comprise their primary rotation.

It is a far cry from last season’s early dominance. Losing KAT in the trade and Kyle Anderson in free agency have taken a toll. How and where to best integrate Randle and DDV remain important wildcards in their future. And segment two rolls forward this week with a West Coast road trip — one game with the Clippers, two with the Golden State Warriors.

It is a time for proven performers. Barring an emergency, development will happen on the sidelines.

Britt Robson

Britt Robson has covered the Timberwolves since 1990 for City Pages, The Rake, SportsIllustrated.com and The Athletic. He also has written about all forms and styles of music for over 30 years.

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