Re: Conley Donte or Dilly
Posted: Thu Oct 23, 2025 6:03 pm
It’s way too early to proclaim Dilly no better than a potential 6th man. He’s 20 years old with only 1 year of college and no meaningful NBA playing time last season. He shined in Summer League and is clearly talented. I’ve gone through the long list of great PGs on winning teams who were around the same size as Dilly. The Wolves front office and coaching staff knew Dilly’s size when they traded way up to #8 to get him. If we believe TC and and his staff are really good basketball minds - better than us - then we shouldn’t worry about Dilly’s size. He needs to develop consistency but that will never come without consistent minutes. Maybe we’ll see he’s not ready now at age 20, but that doesn’t’ mean he won’t be a good PG 12 months from now at age 21 and maybe even a really good PG in 4 years when he’s TSJ’s age.SameOldNudityDrew wrote: ↑Thu Oct 23, 2025 4:53 pm Theoretically, Conley is the best fit for what the starting lineup needs. Steady hand. Floor spacer. Can play with Rudy pretty well. Not a good defender anymore, but knows basically where to be on the floor. Still, he's clearly lost a step or three with age and although he doesn't seem to actively hurt the team when he's out there, he also doesn't seem to be helping the team much either. On a good night, you just barely notice him when he's out there and it's just getting tougher and tougher to have a very good team with a starting PG like that. On a bad night and/or in the playoffs, he's going to get targeted defensively, and that will really be a liability.
Donte is really a SG, not a PG. His ball handling and playmaking just aren't quite there to be a PG, and besides, he's better as a floor spacer moving off the ball. It's kind of unfair to him to put him into that situation, though I can see how he should be able to play with Ant and Julius if Conley's not out there. He's a little bigger than Conley and not a complete liability defensively. Personally, if I squint, I can kinda see why Finch made the switch to him from Conley, but it's obviously not an ideal situation. I'm surprised Finch went to him as the starter. It feels like a bit of desperation at this point.
Dillingham has shown real flashes as a ballhandler and playmaker, and theoretically, he should be a good floor spacer too, but man, is he small. A total defensive liability, and frankly, I think he's kind of erratic when running the offense. He should give us a shot-creator, which we need, but most of the time we don't really need that when Ant and Julius are on the floor. He seems best suited to be a bench sparkplug, and even then, he'll get absolutely picked on defensively in tight games or in the playoffs. I know he needs to develop, but even if he were to become a pretty good version of what he looks like he could become, that looks like a 6th man to me, and we need a starting PG to play alongside Ant. Can't blame Rob for this, but it's definitely a disappointing situation to find ourselves in.
Bones feels similar to Dillingham, just a little longer and a little more steady with decision making on offense, but without the high level handling and shot-creation that Dillingham can bring. Plus he's another small guy who is a real defensive liability,
TSJ and Clark are similar options to Donte. We could kind of get by with them with the starters, probably, but you really want to do better than just "get by" if you want to be a contender. Playing any of those 3 guys (Donte, TSJ, or Clark) as starters would invite pressure defense and put an additional strain on Ant and Julius to carry the ball handling and playmaking responsibilities. That's just not ideal.
Basically, there's not really much of a good solution here at all. It sucks for sure.