It’s been an odd start of the season for the Minnesota Timberwolves. Unlike last season where they were 11-4 through 15 games, they find themselves with a 8-7 record this far. There’s a lot of reasons why the team is struggling. There have been issues on defense and lack of cohesion from the team overall. With the way the team is constructed this season, there’s no room for error.
The Timberwolves have run an eight to nine man rotation so far this season. Reigning Sixth Man of the Year Naz Reid and Donte DiVincenzo see consistent minutes off the bench with Rob Dillingham starting to carve out some minutes. Even so, the Timberwolves continue to struggle, and it’s time to look to see how they can get better use out of their bench.
The Minnesota Timberwolves Have a Bench Problem
No True Backup Point Guard
Coming into the season, you would think this wouldn’t be a concern with the Timberwolves after securing Dillingham, the eighth overall pick in the 2024 draft, but so far that hasn’t been the case. Through eight games, Dillingham is averaging 5.9 minutes per contest. In the couple games Mike Conley has missed, the Timberwolves had elected to have Nickeil Alexander-Walker in the starting lineup. Dillingham’s minutes did increase during Conley’s absence but not significantly.
Even though Alexander-Walker and DiVincenzo are receiving a bulk of the backup guard minutes, their roles don’t necessarily ask them to be playmakers. With Conley off the floor, the Timberwolves often struggle finding consistency in their offense.
Most of the playmaking responsibility fall on Anthony Edwards and Julius Randle when Conley is out. In some cases that’s fine, but it would help for the Timberwolves to have another playmaker to lead the second unit.
Timberwolves Need to Utilize their Options
The Timberwolves are averaging 33.9 bench points a game this season which puts them in the middle of the pack. A lot of those points are coming from Reid who’s averaging 14.3 points this season. Even Reid isn’t immune to having off nights. In Thursday’s game against the Raptors, he was limited to just two points in 22 minutes due to foul trouble.
Now it helps to have DiVincenzo who can pick up the slack if Reid’s shot is off. DiVincenzo is currently averaging 9.5 points a game while shooting 34.8% from the field and 32.4% from three. The shooting splits needs to be better to provide consistent offense off the bench. Even though this isn’t a team that will go deep into their bench to get production, there are ways they can get more production from them.
One key change the Timberwolves could explore is to have Randle lead the second unit. This doesn’t mean that Randle should go to the bench, but to stagger his minutes so he can be on the court with the bench. This would mean having Reid play more minutes alongside Rudy Gobert which could be a better fit.
This may not solve the problems, but it’s an avenue they could explore to see if the lineup makes sense. The Timberwolves are still trying to figure out the Randle and Gobert pairing. The fit hasn’t been perfect so far and it shows.
During the Raptors game, there was a little bit of that friction in the fourth quarter. Gobert had Scottie Barnes sealed under the basket and called for the ball from Randle. When he didn’t get the ball, he nonchalantly walked out the paint resulting in an offensive three second violation. It doesn’t matter who was right or wrong in that scenario, you can’t have those kinds of mishaps especially in a close game down the stretch.
Figuring out a solid rotation will be tough for Minnesota. Assuming no trades are made, the Timberwolves are going to have to get creative with their lineups. One can hope this is something that will get better as the season goes on. There’s no time to waste if the Timberwolves want to establish themselves as a playoff team.
