The Timberwolves’ top trade candidate comes with a painful realization

On Friday, the Minnesota Timberwolves lost to the Houston Rockets by five points. It was another game in which sophomore guard Rob Dillingham saw no action, even when superstar guard Anthony Edwards was out with a toe injury.

Dillingham has largely been rotting on the bench lately, save for garbage time appearances, and is an obvious candidate to be traded. His shooting from inside the arc has been absolutely putrid this season, and that was highlighted by ESPN on Thursday.

Unfortunately, at this point it’s time to move on to the 2024 lottery pick.

Rob Dillingham’s struggle has lasted all season

ESPN’s Bobby Marks and Kevin Pelton recently posted an article on one player to watch for each team who could potentially be dealt before the February 5 trade deadline. It shouldn’t surprise anyone that Dillingham is the player they signed for Minnesota.

Pelton provided an ugly statistic from the recently 21-year-old to show how miserable his sophomore season has been so far.

“Dillingham is shooting just 33% on 2-point attempts, worst among players with at least 100 attempts this season,” Pelton wrote.

That’s right. Dillingham has made exactly a third of his two-point attempts this season (34-102). That’s a big difference from his rookie year, when he was at least adequate (68-137, 49.6 percent). Dillingham wasn’t as good at home, but on the road he made just 16 of his 53 two-point attempts (30.2 percent).

Dillingham, the eighth overall pick in the 2024 NBA Draft, has been largely out of the rotation for a month now and is outranked by Bones Hyland. It’s certainly not what the Timberwolves expected when they traded for the eighth selection to draft Rob in 2024.

Time to move on

With Mike Conley getting older, Minnesota looked to acquire its point guard of the future in the 2024 NBA Draft. It was an understandable move considering Conley was 37 years old at the time (now 38). They gave up their 2031 first-round pick and the right to trade first-round picks in 2030 to the San Antonio Spurs for the aforementioned eighth overall pick in 2024.

After uneven playing time as a rookie, much more was expected from Dillingham in Year 2. Instead, it’s pretty clear that a change of scenery is needed for Dillingham, and it would benefit both the team and the player.

I suggested the Sacramento Kings as a potential landing spot, but the Washington Wizards and Dallas Mavericks could be two other teams where he could get the playing time needed to develop.