timberwolves midseason report card

Jesse Edwards: D

good traditional rim protector, but struggles with drop spacing. lacks size at center, not athletic, not quick enough to guard 4s. very raw offensively. i don't think i see any future of him as an nba rotation player, there's just very little there

Leinard Miller: D+

solid playmaker for a big, but not good enough to warrant giving him the ball much at the nba level. has a bit of slashing, but i don't think he's quick enough or powerful enough for it to be much of a tool. shot continues to be a struggle

makes a lot of good rim protection plays, but is also prone to missing rim rotations. struggles with drop spacing. lacks size at center, but struggles guarding on the perimeter

was an effective scorer in summer league, but i don't see it translating much to the nba. most of his baskets were exploiting guys not rotating to him at the rim, which i think would happen way less in the nba

has more of an all-around game than any timberwolves' non-rotation player, but ultimately i don't think Leinard Miller is good enough in any one area, aside from rebounding (pretty much the least important thing) for it to be an applicable nba skill

Jaylen Clark: C-

defensively he's there. great poa defender, great screen navigator, good off-ball defender. very raw offensively. with a solid handle, good quickness, a sturdy frame, and a high motor all the tools are there, it just comes down to developing the offense for Jaylen Clark

Terrence Shannon Jr: C-

similar to Jaylen Clark, but i'm a bit less confident in Shannon's defense and a bit more confident in his offense. appears to be good at guarding 2s/3s and is a good off-ball defender. offensively has some slashing and can shoot to some degree. like Clark the defense is probably good enough, but the offense likely needs work

Luka Garza: C

shooting numbers haven't been there the last couple years, but i'm giving Luka the benefit of the doubt considering the tiny sample size. between the shooting and movement he's got a good off-ball package offensively, and the defense has been much improved the last couple years. his relative lack of size and abysmal footspeed will probably always hold Luka back from being a great defensive player, but disciplined drop spacing and a high motor have kept his defense from being too much of a liability imo

Joe Ingles: D

there's not much to say here other than the fact that the general expectation coming into the season was that Ingles was going to be a part of the timberwolves' rotation, and he was in the rotation for the first handful of games in a limited capacity, before losing his spot to..... no one. because Finch opted to just shorten his rotation to eight guys over playing Ingles. which i think is telling to how disappointing Ingles must have been in training camp and whatnot

Rob Dillingham: C+

after a horrific defensive showing in summer league Dillingham has been immensely better on that end during the season. despite very limited, inconsistent playing time Dillingham has been a good off-ball defender. very on point with his switches, even making more advanced reads like peel switches pretty consistently. good hands, good rotations. hedges and recovers really well to avoid disadvantegous switches

as an on-ball defender i hardly think he's been a liability at all despite how small he is. great at staying in front of his man, great physicality, great contests, great screen navigator. he's done a lot to offset his lack of size as an on-ball defender

offensively Dillingham appears to be a good shooter (at the least), a solid playmaker, and a good mover, with some degree of stepback 3pt shooting and slashing

the small sample holds me back from making a clear evaluation of Dillingham's offense, but something appears to be there, and there's definitely some defense. i've loved what i've seen from Dillingham and i hope that he can keep his rotation spot even after DiVincenzo returns, so we can explore Dillingham further

Josh Minott: D

outside of shooting Minott isn't bad at anything

the issue is that he isn't good at anything either

Minott used to have a high motor, and then i'm not sure what happened. at least he used to have the on-ball & off-ball D. now his stops and good help plays get cancelled out by blow-bys and lackadaisical rotations

offensively Minott isn't a scorer, a playmaker, or a mover. and worst of all he can't shoot at all. teams continually leave him wide open from 3, the timberwolves invariably find him (he's presumably making them in practice) and he just continues to clank

if you're a non-shooter and are average at everything else then i just don't see what purpose you have in an nba rotation

Naz Reid: B

Naz hasn't been great and he hasn't been bad. somewhere in between. solid

solid traditional rim protection and rotations, but cancels it out with terrible drop spacing, horrible transition D (no, the crazy chasedown block once in a blue moon doesn't change that), and a propensity for overhelping. on the ball he simply can't guard anyone who's not a 4

offensively the shooting has been excellent just like last year. scoring has been decent, but i feel like Naz could make a jump there. movement hasn't really been there, and the playmaking has all but completely vanished

the issue with Naz is that this just isn't the right team for him imo. he needs more spacing around him to open up his scoring/movement/playmaking

Mike Conley: B

i don't go lower than this for Mike because i think the defense and off-ball offense have still been there. i don't think he's declined as much as is generally made out to be

very active off-ball defender, good hands, great gap help, great rotations, great zone-ups, great hedge & recover. as an on-ball defender does as much as he can to make up for his lack of size. great at keeping his man in front, great physicality

offensively the shooting is still there (essentially. i think last year's 44% 3pt mark was an anomaly), movement still there, but the scoring has fallen off and as a result the playmaking has dipped as well. but Conley has been a solid playmaker regardless imo

NAW: A-

world-class perimeter defender both as a poa defender and off the ball. amazing hands, elite rotations, great zone-ups, great gap help. elite ball pressure, great screen navigator. NAW's only wart as a defender is that he can somewhat struggle to guard bigger wings, but that's not an issue in most matchups

offensively NAW has provided great shooting and solid movement to go with a sprinkle of scoring & playmaking

i don't give NAW a higher grade because i think he has the potential for more from a scoring/playmaking standpoint. but elite defense coupled with a solid offensive support package is still pretty damn good

Julius Randle: D+

the good:

solid common scorer (scoring vs non-elite defenses), good traditional playmaking. good at almost every aspect of playmaking. solo passing (passing to off-ball movers from a relatively stationary position), trap passing (leveraging defensive attention into passes from a relatively stationary position), slam passing (drive-and-kicks), and zip passing (quick passes to keep offense humming)

now for the mountain of bad

he's a terrible high-end scorer (scoring vs elite defenses). Randle just isn't good at creating clean looks for himself and relies heavily on a not very quick/not athletic slashing game. elite defenses turn his fairly contested shots into extremely contested ones and shut off his not-very-potent slashing game

very iso-heavy. this stagnates the offense and gets teammates out of their off-ball habits

mediocre shooter. even when Randle was shooting well from 3 the first ~30 games he wasn't actually providing much spacing value because teams were just leaving him. and since then he's dropped down to 32% from 3

abysmal mover. pretty much refuses to move without the ball

mediocre rebounder. this year anyway. this is with Rudy rebounding solidly less than usual and two starters in Conley/Jaden being poor rebounders for much of the year. there isn't any excuse to not get rebounds

good at guarding 4s, but terrible at guarding 1s/2s/3s

abysmal transition defender, off-ball defender, and rim protector. botches switches regularly, loses his man constantly

the guy simply gives very little effort if he doesn't have the ball. as an off-ball offensive player Randle is a statue. defensively he hardly even tries to get up the court in transition D, doesn't put much effort in to keeping guys in front of him, shies away from physicality, doesn't provide gap help, doesn't provide physicality at the rim, is often disengaged off the ball. it's just a very low motor game from Randle in practically any situation on the court in which he doesn't have the ball

i appreciate Randle's common scoring and traditional playmaking, but there's simply way too many negative things he brings to the table for me to go higher with this grade, particularly considering that many of his shortcomings are due in large part to lack of effort

Donte DiVincenzo: C+

DiVincenzo's come on of late, but it's too small of a sample for me to go higher than this for the grade

defensively is where Divincenzo's been really disappointing for me. high motor and not complete garbage as an off-ball defender, but botches switches and misses rotations regularly. i've been waiting and waiting for him to turn it around, but it just hasn't happened. and as a rim protector doesn't have the size or strength to be much of a factor

as an on-ball defender DiVincenzo ball pressures more than his physical tools warrant. as a result he gives up a good amount of blow-bys, often away from help. and when he does manage to keep his man in front of him it's not uncommon for him to get overpowered on the way to the rim

offensively the scoring and shooting have been a bit inconsistent, but solid in the aggregate. DiVincenzo really showed a great all-around offensive package in the early stretches of the season when he had the movement and playmaking as well, but i haven't seen much from him in those areas since

a decent supporting piece nonetheless, but i think he has the potential to be tremendous

Jaden McDaniels: B

whatever mental demons Jaden was battling last season (presumably due to his poa D struggles and how he let the team down by punching the wall the year prior) he's appeared to have conquered them this year, which has led to a slew of improvements in his game relative to last year

for one he's finally cleaned up a lot of the foul issues

then Jaden has regained much of his off-ball D from a couple years ago. great activity, great ball denial, elite gap help, elite rotations, great zone-ups, great secondary rim protection, and that otherworldly recovery

but not only has Jaden regained what he's once lost defensively, but he's also added something else to his defensive toolkit this year. great poa D. Jaden is now a good screen navigator, which has helped him immensely when it comes to keeping himself in plays when defending p&r ball-handlers. in non-p&r situations i think Jaden ball pressures a bit too much for my liking (he's not quite as quick as NAW) and ends up giving up more blow-bys than he ideally should, but i'm nitpicking. overall a phenomenal on-ball defender who can guard 1 through 4

then there's the rebounding. after averaging a woeful ~2.5 a game per usual for the first ~30 games Jaden began to turn it around. he's averaging 7 rpg over the last 14 games, which takes him up to 5 rpg for the year

offensively Jaden frankly hasn't been doing much. mediocre shooting, terrible movement, not much playmaking, with just a hint of scoring. the scoring has been showing signs over the last handful of games (presumably due to his continually-improving mental state), so that's something, but it earns negligible credit in this exercise, which measures the whole season up to this point

Jaden's grade gets held back by his lack of offense and by the fact that the defense didn't really begin to take shape till ~15 games in

Anthony Edwards: B-

Ant's off-ball D has been terrible per usual. loses his man regularly, botches switches, gambles for interceptions, misses rotations, very floorbound on rim rotations, terrible transition D

his on-ball D has continued to decline every year since a high-water mark of legitimately great in '22. i just don't think Ant has the motor to give high effort on both ends. in '22 his offensive load wasn't all that much. but with each passing year Ant's offensive load continues to get greater and his on-ball has continued to decline. Ant's on-ball D through the years:

'22: great

'23: solid. could still rev the engines up to lockdown level on select possessions against superstars

'24: decent. could still rev the engines at times, just not as much

'25: poor. and now Ant is seemingly unable to even go into lockdown mode. his 'lockdown mode' now is to aggressively ball pressure guys 35 feet out only to have them blow by him. it's like fake defense

and on top of being bad at keeping his man in front of him Ant also often gambles for steals on the ball

Ant's on-ball D has been so spotty that i honestly think teams should target him on switches, but they just don't realize how much his on-ball D has regressed

Ant's screen navigation has also been somewhat of an issue. he can be an elite screen navigator when he wants to be, but too often Ant doesn't even try to screen navigate, forcing Rudy to switch onto p&r ball-handlers. the timberwolves this year have often been implementing a defensive p&r principle where Rudy switches onto p&r ball-handlers in the case that the poa defender doesn't sufficiently screen navigate. but Ant has been abusing this layer of the p&r defense, often not even trying to screen navigate because 'well, Rudy will just switch'

offensively the bright spot for Ant has been the 3pt shooting where he's become absolutely deadly. 43% on 10 attempts per game is ridiculous. put that together with his slashing, playmaking, and movement and you have an offensive ceiling that might just be transcendant

but Ant has a bugaboo, and that's his inconsistent motor. for the first few years of his career Ant always experienced 20-30 game stretches where he just looked far less engaged offensively and the team wouldn't even give him the ball much, as if he had told them something along the lines of 'yeah, i'm not feeling it. don't even look for me much.' it's a night and day difference from high motor Ant where he's attacking the paint and scoring/playmaking regularly

last year we saw an improvement from Ant as far as the motor issues were concerned. there was a 10-15 game stretch towards the end of the year, but the rest of the regular season was clean. although it's worth noting that 'low motor Ant' reemerged about halfway through the denver series and lasted for the rest of the playoffs

but this year we got an extended stretch of low motor Ant early in the year (i'm guessing because the olympics wore him out, but concerning nonetheless). it lasted for about 25 games, mid november through december i believe. Ant averaged just 20 ppg in december (which is like 17 ppg or less in any other era), and the playmaking and movement were non-existent

that ~25 game stretch really hurts Ant's overall season performance for me at this point because it's such a massive chunk of games where he was playing way below his baseline, and i don't think we've even seen much from Ant as a playmaker this year till very recently

i get it, the spacing around Ant sucks. the trio of Jaden/Randle/Rudy is dreadful. the issue is that for most of the season i have not been witnessing Ant trying to slash or drive-and-kick followed by clanks. for most of the season i've been watching Ant not even trying to make plays going to the rim, and when he does good things usually happen. that's not to mention that there's plenty of times where NAW is out there for Jaden or Naz for Randle and the spacing is better. some regression in Ant's slashing and playmaking is to be expected with worse spacing, but i don't think quite this much

i think Ant has solidly declined as an on-ball defender, playmaker, and mover this year. even factoring in the improved 3pt shooting there's just too much negative there for me to grade him higher and i remain very concerned about the motor issues (because can he even last an extended playoff run?)

Rudy Gobert: A-

apparently Finch has said that Rudy isn't the same defender as he was last year, and as a result the media has also repeatedly voiced this opinion. and i don't get it

to my observation Rudy has been every bit as good defensively this year as last, while showing more versatility. phenomenal rim protector, massive body, high motor, willing to roam way off his man to rim protect when needed, immaculate drop spacing. great in the high drop at helping and recovering or switching when needed. solid guarding guys on the perimeter, which is something the timberwolves have asked him to do quite a bit this year. just a transcendant defensive player

offensively Rudy's scoring is down a bit, but i don't think it's his fault. the timberwolves lost two of Rudy's better p&r partners in KAT & Slo-Mo, and then Conley has solidly declined. it's not like the timberwolves are running p&r with Rudy and he's fumbling passes or something. they're just not running much p&r because Finch isn't a heavy p&r coach and the team is short on p&r ball-handlers. so i don't dock Rudy for his scoring regression

then there's Rudy's playmaking. he's having his best playmaking season of his minnesota tenure (and i imagine of his career). no, Rudy's playmaking hasn't been legitimately good or anything; it's not exactly something to write home about. but the zip passing has been solid. i think it's of note

the one thing with Rudy that's been disappointing this year has been his rebounding, and that's why he avoids a higher grade. for whatever reason Rudy is not rebounding at nearly the same level as usual this year and it's made us vulnerable against elite rebounding teams like the grizzlies (who we could easily see in the playoffs)

nonetheless i think Rudy is the timberwolves' mvp so far, thanks to the phenomenal defense. the way i look at it is that Ant & Rudy are both one-way players, but Rudy is way closer to a perfect defensive player than Ant is to a perfect offensive player. so Rudy gets my timberwolves' midseason mvp