Matty Writes Sports

with a record of 2 wins and 2 losses, with wins against the new look Sacramento Kings and the Toronto Raptors, whilst losing to the JJ Redick led Los Angeles Lakers and their WCF enemy, the Dallas Mavericks.

On paper, this doesn’t seem too bad. Both the Mavericks and the Lakers made the postseason last campaign, whilst the Kings have added mid range demon Demar DeRozan to their ranks over the offseason. Having 2 losses doesn’t seem like the end of the world in that case.

And you’d be right. The Timberwolves are still poised to be one of the best teams in the entire association over the season, and some great teams have had rocky starts before. For example, in 2022, the Celtics team that made it to the NBA Finals, at one stage were 18-21, before a late season charge led them through the Eastern Conference.

Plus, the Timberwolves’ issue shouldn’t really be a hard one to fix. After a huge trade in training camp that sent franchise icon and one of the longest tenured players on any team, Karl Anthony Towns to the New York Knicks, there were always going to be some teething issues with their new core. Julius Randle isn’t a particularly similar player to Towns; Towns is a 7 foot, lights out shooter from range, whilst Randle prefers to go to work in the post, and has been quite streaky from beyond the arc over his NBA career. Fitting Randle into a starting lineup which includes offensive non-factor Rudy Gobert was always going to be a bit of a struggle at first, but it seems to have worked.

Despite a rather disappointing debut against the Lakers, Randle rebounded excellently against the Kings, exploding for 33 points on 13-17 shooting against the Kings, including 5 three pointers, in a game where the Wolves narrowly escaped with a 117-115 victory. Randle continued his good shooting against the Raptors, and was effective against the Mavericks, so, Randle certainly has not been the problem for the Timberwolves so far.

So what has been?

Turnovers. Lots of them.

Now, a new team who are trying to fit players into a system will always suffer from turnovers. That is to be expected, especially with a player like Randle, who’s role is evolving from the one he had in New York. But the Timberwolves have had some particularly egregious ones, especially in the defeat to Dallas.

In this game, the Timberwolves gave up over 15 turnovers, something that Dallas completely punished them for. In the fastbreak, Dallas completely dominated the Wolves, scoring 24 fastbreak points, the majority of which where uncontested by any Minnesota defensive player. When this becomes a common theme, the wins will not follow as easily, especially against teams as strong as Dallas.

This happened in the game against Los Angeles too; crucial turnovers, particularly from Randle in this one lead to a vast mismatch in fastbreak points, especially because LA protected the ball so well in that particular encounter, which seems to be something that Coach JJ Redick is emphasising for the Lakers.

But to me, these turnovers are preventable. Once Randle has more chemistry with the team, they should become a thing of the past.

What might not be though, are Coach Finch’s rotations.

Currently, Finch’s rotation appears to only be 8 men deep. The starting 5 of Mike Conley, Jaden McDaniels, Rudy Gobert, Julius Randle and Anthony Edwards, along with 3 players off of the bench. Newly acquired Donte DiVincenzo takes the brunt of these bench minutes, with Nickeil Alexander Walker an 6moty winner Naz Reid also joining him. This is the kind of rotation that you would expect to see by the time the playoffs have come rolling around, not in the first 4 games of the season.

Perhaps even worse though is the fact that Coach Finch seems to be completely against utilising any of Minnesota’s young guns tucked away on the bench. Recent 8th overall pick Rob Dillingham, who the Wolves traded for on draft night from the Spurs hasn’t touched an NBA floor yet, and the same can be said for all of the Wolves’ young players. Dillingham does appear to be under the tutelage of Mike Conley, but even in stretches where Conley has struggled mightily, Finch does not seem particularly excited to use his shifty new point guard.

The same goes for the rest of Minnesota’s young players. For example, Josh Minott, drafted with the 45th overall pick out of Memphis in 2022, was electric for the Wolves in the pre-season, with some high flying dunks and energetic defence captivating many Minnesota fans for a reason. He seemed to be everything that the Wolves had missed last season, a complete spring bean off the bench who can create shot opportunities for himself. Yet, Coach Finch hasn’t thrown him a bone to play with this season, and many people have began to question why.

A perfect time to maybe use one of these young players was in the 3rd quarter of the game against Dallas. After halftime, the Wolves raced out to a 71-61 lead, at which point Mavs coach Jason Kidd called a timeout. From this timeout, to the end of the quarter about 9 minute later, the Mavericks scored 32 points. The Wolves scored 12. In this timespan, the Wolves struggled mightily on offence, yet Finch still didn’t see any reason to bring one of the young players on to the court. The Mavs’ lead grew larger and yet, Dillingham, Minott and Terence Shannon Jr remained on the bench. Why?

It is especially frustrating when Finch has been trying to fit minutes in for Joe Ingles, the 37 year old Australian far past his heyday with the Utah Jazz. Ingles has regressed significantly as a basketball player since leaving Utah (not helped by an ACL injury sustained against his current team in January 2022), but for all extensive purposes, Joe Ingles should not be touching an NBA court in 2024. Especially, when the Wolves have better players on the bench already. It’s a move that has puzzled many; including myself and, it’s even harder to understand when Ingles has shown he shouldn’t be on the court. To be fair to him, he has only played around 5 minutes in every game, but the main issue here is that the Wolves should not be relying on only 8 players. Not this early into the season.

I am mainly just confused as to why a team with offensive struggles that have carried over from last season seem so against using young, offensive spark plugs that could help them put some points on the board. Dillingham is a shifty young guard, with a smooth handle and excellent playmaking skills, that he put on full display in the pre-season, and exactly what the Wolves lacked last season; a proper backup to Mike Conley. The Wolves tried several avenues to find this; They signed Shake Milton in free agency in 2023, before trading him and Troy Brown Jr for Monte Morris, who could barely see the floor in the postseason. Now that they have a young, hungry guard like Dillingham, Finch still doesn’t want to use his skillset off the bench.

As is the case for Josh Minott; always seen as a project coming out of Memphis, Minott seems to have finally blossomed into a useful player. Tall and lanky, standing at 6’9, Minott showcased his extreme energy in the pre-season, especially against the Chicago Bulls and the Denver Nuggets, with a series of aggressive dunks and quick hands and feet on the defensive end. Against Dallas’ defence, Minott could easily have made a difference, but again, Finch ignored the young forward.

Potentially the only reasoning I could see for running an 8 man rotation in October is due to chemistry. I mean, Randle has been on the roster for barely over a month, and, perhaps Finch is trying to get Randle accustomed to playing with the main rotation guys. As much as I like Dillingham and Minott, it does seem relatively likely that their roles would be scaled back come playoff time. As a result, we may see Rob Dillingham, Minott or any of the Wolves’ young pieces begin play later on, once Finch believes that Randle is completely prepared to play with the playoff rotation.

Maybe this is all part of Finch’s masterplan. But we’ll find out later on in the season. It is a miniscule sample size after all, and 78 games remain in the year.