Rob Dillingham

[BeenLurkin]

I haven’t seen as much potential for TJ to be a half court offense star compared to Dilly. Dilly shows true flashes of brilliant half court creation. They both seem to be fantastic in transition. TJ is ready now to contribute 20plus minutes but is still stuck as the 8th guy most likely. Why I think the team gives Dilly rope to start the year though is that we struggle greatly in half court sets when the defense ratchets up. That’s where Rob could become more useful as a cog if he can limit turnovers when it starts to matter. I don’t care about turnovers or assist totals in summer league.

That brings me to what I think is a huge pro in the column for Rob…his ability to consistently get the ball off the inbound and up court and into the initial set without turnovers…if anyone watched last years summer league for comparison (I watched a quarter from three different games) you’d notice immediatly the different level of compete on defense. Something happened in the regular season that the league took notice of(Defense winning a title). And I think the guys looking to crack a squad are trying to do so by being a defensive pest the entire time they are out there. Every single trip Dilly has had to take down the court off inbound has been full court pressed and doubled or double threatened at half court. That didn’t happen last summer. He has handled the pressure admirably.

That brings us to the second half of game four. Anyone wondering if he still has that spark he talks about trying to find go watch this half. Kid balled out and he didn’t need to play off ball to do it. He found open guys while driving and hit some big threes. He really pulled it all together there. Maybe it’s a flash in the pan but it also could be genuine hard work paying off. I really hope we sneak into the semis so he can get as much work as possible in this level of defensive pressure.

On a side note I think the league might wanna bring the foul out level back down to earth if we are gonna play this hard in D, free throw contests in July are tough to watch and really creates a strategically different game when guys just foul for the hell of it.

[Lipoli390]

Is that fair for the other 13 players on the team though... especially the veterans ready to win a title NOW. And is it fair to put Dillingham in that position?

Whether they're favorites to make the Finals or not... it is a back-to-back WCF team with almost everyone returning. The wolves have veterans all over ready to compete at that level again, from the old Conley to the aging Gobert to 30 year old Randle to young vets like Edwards and McDaniels who've played in a lot of playoff games over several years.

To compromise all of that for a development year for Dillingham seems misguided to me. And I don't think it should sit well for the players, coaches... or other fans either.

The team is built to win NOW. Risking it all for the development of a #8 draft pick who's not even close to a sure thing... yikes. The more I think about it... the more I think a move for a credible PG is part of the plan.



[Note: It's all moot IF Dillingham is legit. I'm talking about if he looks anything like the guy last year who wasn't even on the playoff roster most of the time.]

it’s not necessarily a binary analysis where he’s great so you play him or he’s terrible so you don’t. It’s unlikely he’ll be great next season although I think he can be great in a year or two. It’s its highly unlikely he’ll be terrible. His play will likely fall somewhere on a continuum and his playing time should and likely will reflect where he is on that continuum. It’s also likely that his playing will improve over the course of the season with playing time so it probably makes sense to give him more minutes than his play might otherwise warrant early in the season to help develop him into the player we’ll need down the stretch and in the playoffs. In that sense, it’s not much different from sitting vets to throughout the season to keep them fresh even though it often means losing some regular season games you might otherwise win.

And let’s not panic at the prospect of Dilly not developing as quickly this season as we’d like. The Wolves front office obviously contemplated that possibility, which is in part why they re-signed Randle and probably why the SL coaching staff had TSJ leading the offense so often in his three SL games. Ant typically plays the role MJ and Kobe used to play as a de facto PG. Having SGs like TSJ and Donte along with a playmaking PF like Randle could work just fine. We finished with 49 wins last season but we were much better than that the second half of the season after our guys had gained experience playing together and once Randle adjusted his approach upon returning from injury. We were a really good team without any contribution from Dilly and with minimal contributions from TSJ and Clark.

I do think there is merit to giving Dilly a little more leash that would otherwise be warranted for sake of facilitating his development beyond next season but I don’t think it will come down to that. I think he’ll get more time early in the season to facilitate his development for later in the season and that strikes me as the smart thing to do. I think we’ll find that Dilly helps our NBA Wolves win just as he’s helped the SL Wolves these past four games.

Agree with you here Lip. The answer can be "both", meaning he gets rope early in the season and every opportunity to be successful, but Finch can ultimately shorten the rotation if he's struggling down the stretch. We don't always have to play a pure PG. It's just that the OKC matchup magnified the issue as one guy after another had problems bringing the ball up or trying to put the ball on the floor.

The other thing is that for all of Dillingham's struggles, at the end of the day, he hasn't proven to be net negative when he does play. He had a positive net rating during the regular season last year (for a point of comparison, Josh Minott was a negative and he had the benefit of playing with the same team mates Rob had) and he's led the Summer League squad to a 4-0 record. He's not like "Hey, let's try playing Zach LaVine as a PG!" bad.

I think the disappointment is in the realization that his ceiling of second star next to Ant is still just a dream and not very close to reality. That's when I turn my thoughts to Terrence Shannon, Jr......

That’s exactly how my thinking has evolved. I loved it when we ended up with Dilly and TSJ last summer but at the time I was more excited about Dilly. I’m still excited about Dilly long term, but like you, my thoughts have turned to TSJ as the guy who might be that second star for the Wolves as early as next season. What Dilly will bring offensively is an another guy with the ball, other than Ant, who defenders have to worry about. Dilly has a great handle. He can score off the dribble from anywhere on the floor or blow by defenders attacking the basket. He’s also an excellent passer. We don’t have anyone else on the team who can do all those things offensively and as a result defenses have been able to key exclusively on Ant when he has the ball.

Dilly could eventually reach the same level as Darius Garland, D. Fox or Ja Morant but he doesn’t have to reach that level next season to be a positive for the NBA Wolves; he just has to do the things he’s does well fairly consistently and reduce his careless turnovers.