FNG wrote: ↑Wed Jan 14, 2026 1:28 pm
Coolbreeze44 wrote: ↑Wed Jan 14, 2026 1:15 pm
The best thing Dilly can do is get in the weight room. His weakness is strength.
Yeah, that would help, especially with his poor finishing around the rim. I've changed my mind about his 3-point shooting in the last couple weeks though. His form looks better to me, and his 3-pointer last night looked clean and repeatable. And after a bad start, he's 5 for 12 in December and January. If he can shoot like that, hustle on defense, and not turn the ball over, I see him as a nice rotational piece next year. And he just turned 21. I don't want to see him traded unless we get something really good in return.
I want to, but I just don't see it with Dillingham. He's jitterbug quick with the ball. He's young. He's got a knack for passing.
But he's just so short, he'll always be a big defensive liability, especially in the playoffs, when teams would target the hell out of him and probably play him off the court. I honestly think his arm length even looks a bit short for his already short height.
Theoretically, if he were stronger he could try to attack the rim more directly and try to draw fouls instead of settling for those very low percentage floaters and bank-shots high off the glass while he's sailing sideways out of bounds. But even if he were stronger, I still don't think he'd have the length to finish. And yes, he's just 21, but having played his whole life as probably the shortest guy on the floor, I just don't see him developing the mindset of trying to go through guys at the rim to draw fouls.
And personally, I've always thought his jump shot looked kinda funky. He turns his hips sideways, drifts with his feet, and he seems to have two motions on the shot with inconsistent timing. He pops up in one motion, and then shoots it with another, and I'd feel more confident with that shot motion if the timing were consistent. Some of the greatest shooters like Ray Allen and Klay are also two-motion shooters, but they were both masters of squaring up and you could set a clock by the timing between their jump and their release. Other than those guys, most of the good shooters have a more fluid shooting motion than Dillingham, which makes it so much easier to dial in the range. I don't think this is nearly as big a deal as his size, but if he were going to earn minutes, he'd really have to be a floor stretcher at least, and I'm wary of that happening.
The biggest thing with Dillingham for me though is his size. There are some good short players. Trae Young and Garland come to mind, but I think they are even bigger than Dillingham and both of them are frankly much more poised and in control with the ball and more fluid shooters (and one just got traded, and the other's getting talked about because he can't fit with Mitchell). I think in comparison to Garland and Young, Dillingham always looks to move kind of skittishly. Like an uncertain Bassy Telfair. He's quick as hell and has amazing handles, but that kind of movement on the floor also makes it tougher for teammates to anticipate passes.
I could still be wrong. I really hope I am. But I just don't have much confidence in Dillingham ever really becoming a particularly valuable player. And I suspect the rest of the league has seen enough too that we could not expect to get much of anything in return for him, honestly, even on a rookie contract.
