The earnestness of Rob Dillingham’s question was enough to put even one of the NBA’s most outgoing personalities at a loss for words.
Anthony Edwards, 23, is a grizzled veteran in comparison to his rookie point guard. So when he saw Dillingham grinding his teeth over his lack of playing time early in this Minnesota Timberwolves season, Edwards pulled him aside and tried to meet him on his level.
Edwards told Dillingham of his rookie season in 2020-21 and the patience that was required of him when he spent the first 17 games as a reserve for one of the worst teams in the league.
“I was the No. 1 draft pick and I came off the bench,” Edwards said. “I’ve been trying to get him to understand this.”
To Dillingham, that is ancient history. He turned 20 earlier this month and, like most his age, wants the world and he wants it right now. He was a highlight machine in college and a player the Timberwolves mortgaged a part of their future for so they could acquire the No. 8 overall pick to get him.
Dillingham knew he was coming to an experienced team that had just made the Western Conference finals, and that he would have to earn his playing time. But he did not expect to be averaging fewer than 10 minutes per game and only playing in 19 of the first 44 of the season.
So even someone of Edwards’ stature, the face of the franchise and one of the brightest young stars in the league, isn’t enough to quell the ambition of youth. That is what got him this far. That is what caused him to look Edwards in the eye and hit him with the question.
“Do you think I’m gonna hurt y’all if I get out there on the court,” Dillingham asked Edwards, repeating himself for effect. “You think I’m gonna hurt y’all?”
The tone in Dillingham’s voice hit home for Edwards. If there is anything he respects, it is confidence. Edwards has it going through every vein in his body. He put himself in Dillingham’s shoes because he has been there. Edwards remembers what it felt like to have a smaller role when he believed he was ready for more. For most of his life, Dillingham has been a go-to player on his teams, a bucket-getting ingenue with a sizzle reel full of style points.
It has never occurred to Dillingham that he could be viewed as a liability on the court.
“You can’t say nothing back to that because the confidence is there and he showed it,” Edwards said.
There have been plenty of DNPs for Dillingham so far this season, some because coach Chris Finch is devoting more time to veterans to get the team going and some because Dillingham has had to deal with two ankle sprains already this season. But Donte DiVincenzo’s toe injury, which will keep him out for a while, has opened the door for Dillingham to be added to the rotation, and he is trying to make the most of it.
“I’ve always played. I never had to go through where I’m not playing, especially because of injury,” Dillingham said. “It was new to me. But I just had to sit back and realize why it was happening, then take my time off and get ready for when I do get in the game, just like now.”
That may sound more magnanimous than Dillingham has been this season, and his coaches and teammates love that about him. His baby face hides a rugged competitiveness that has him yearning to join the fight. When he is healthy and not playing, they see him stewing on the sideline. They know he doesn’t like it.
“I tell him that it’s a good sign that he’s frustrated by not playing,” Rudy Gobert said. “If you don’t care, that means you’re not ambitious enough. I love that.”
Gobert lived that life early in his career as well. He was not the highly touted prospect as a rookie that Dillingham is now, but in his mind, Gobert belonged on the floor and it ate at him when the Utah Jazz sent him to the NBA’s developmental league to get some experience.
“My ego was hurt, but it felt good to go out there, play, dominate and realize you’re still a good basketball player,” Gobert said. “But also put that frustration, that hunger to be on the floor and to help the team, put that into working harder than everybody else.”
Dillingham scored 15 points on 6-of-8 shooting with zero turnovers in 17 minutes on Monday in Memphis. The Timberwolves outscored the Grizzlies by 16 points in his 17 minutes on the floor in a game they lost by two. He had nine points and three assists in a win in New York on Friday and did not play as well when he scored 12 points in a loss to the Cavaliers on Saturday. There will be ups and downs for a player so young in such a demanding position. But the juice he is bringing is undeniable.
“I feel like before, I was playing more nervous, I’m scared to mess up,” Dillingham said. “Now it’s just like I’m just playing basketball. If I mess up, I mess up.”
There are real limitations in Dillingham’s game, especially defensively, that need to be managed. In an era of big point guards like Luka Dončić, Shai Gilgeous-Alexander and James Harden, the smaller, shiftier players like Dillingham are becoming more unique. But there is a blueprint out there.
“I’m going to try to get in the gym with him a little bit this summer because I can see the potential,” said Cleveland Cavaliers All-Star Darius Garland. “I’ve been watching him since high school. I see the potential.”
On draft night in 2019, the Timberwolves front office was burning up the phone lines to trade up from their No. 11 pick to get a skinny, small, but super-quick shooter from Vanderbilt named Darius Garland.
When the Atlanta Hawks traded up to No. 4 and took De’Andre Hunter, the Wolves thought they were in luck. Cleveland was sitting at No. 5 and already had young guards Collin Sexton and Jordan Clarkson on the roster. When they couldn’t swing a deal with the Cavaliers, the Wolves still moved up to No. 6 with the hopes that Garland would be there.
The Cavaliers grabbed Garland anyway, leaving the Wolves to settle for Jarrett Culver. Garland was a little undersized at 6 foot 1 and 170 pounds, but the Cavs front office decided he could not be overlooked.
Over the last six seasons, general manager Koby Altman has built a roster around him that accentuates his skills and covers up his weaknesses. He has two big, defensive-minded frontcourt studs in Jarrett Allen and Evan Mobley there to have his back. He has a talented, three-level scorer by his side in the backcourt in Donovan Mitchell and a mix of wings with size and shooting at small forward.
Kenny Atkinson, the first-year coach who has galvanized this Cleveland roster and put the Cavs in the No. 1 spot in the Eastern Conference, compares Garland to Steph Curry, whom Atkinson coached at Golden State.
“It’s not just his shooting, but when they come up on him, he can break someone down, anybody in the league. And that’s unique,” Atkinson said. “That’s part of the reason at the end of the game that we use him a lot. We know he’s going to create separation. We know he’s going to make something good for himself and his teammates. Unique to have that combination at that size and that’s what makes him, to me, a great player.”
That Wolves front office that coveted Garland is long gone now, but president of basketball operations Tim Connelly has a similar affinity for quick, bucket-getting guards. He swapped the Wolves’ 2031 first-round pick with San Antonio to go get Dillingham, believing that the Wolves had an acute need for his scoring creativity. Connelly also sees a strikingly similar system for him in Minnesota — Gobert at the rim, Edwards as the alpha scorer, Jaden McDaniels, Nickeil Alexander-Walker and Donte DiVincenzo as wing defenders with size around him.
Dillingham and Garland are both represented by Klutch Sports and have been in contact over the years. Dillingham has seen the success that Garland is having and believes that he can follow a similar path to him, Trae Young and Mike Conley as smaller guards who still make oversized impacts on the game.
“He definitely has a lot of things I can take and learn how to draw crowds, getting all his players involved and also scoring the ball,” Dillingham said of Garland. “Definitely can learn a bunch from him.”
Dillingham knew that he was being drafted into an uncommon situation. Most top-10 picks come to teams that are struggling and have playing time to burn. The Wolves were coming off of a Western Conference finals appearance and DiVincenzo’s arrival in the trade that sent Karl-Anthony Towns to New York right before training camp only deepened their guard rotation.
“It’s hard for rookies to play meaningful minutes for teams that are trying to win at the top of the table. It just is,” Finch said. “You just have to wait, be patient. Rob is going to be an extremely good player in this league for a long time to come. We’re all confident in that, and he just has to keep staying ready.”
Of course, the Timberwolves are nowhere near the top of the table right now. They have languished right around .500 for much of the season, becoming one of the bigger disappointments in the league. Finch has been trying to give his veterans as much playing time as possible to work through the disjointedness that came in part by making such a major trade so close to the start of the season.
Conley and Gobert have regressed significantly this season, McDaniels and Naz Reid are only just starting to round into form after a tough first two months and Julius Randle has been an awkward fit in the starting group. The Wolves have struggled to inject flow and playmaking into their offense.
Dillingham sees it. He believes he can solve a lot of the team’s offensive issues, and though he may say the right things publicly, his teammates see his teeth grinding away in games like on Monday when he spent the last 4 minutes, 30 seconds on the bench against the Grizzlies and watched his team give up a five-point lead.
“His confidence is at an all-time high, so he never can get that. He sounds just like me and I couldn’t understand why I wasn’t starting,” Edwards said. “So I can’t give him too many answers.”
As much as he may not have enjoyed the first half of the season on the bench, Dillingham understands it. He sees veterans in front of him with more equity. He sees a team trying to find itself in the middle of an underwhelming start. He knows that his time is coming and that it could be here now.
“I look at it like this is a journey for me, so even though I don’t want to be patient, that’s just my confidence coming through because I feel like I can do it,” Dillingham said. “But overall I do have to be patient. So if it doesn’t come, it’s all right.”
There are going to be rough nights for him. The Cavaliers hunted him on defense in the second half on Saturday, with Mitchell hitting him with a “too small” taunt after taking him to the basket. Dillingham was 3 of 4 from 3-point range against Memphis but then went 0 of 3 from the field in nine quiet minutes of a 115-114 victory over the Dallas Mavericks on Wednesday.
The Wolves were outscored by eight points in those nine minutes. Such is life for a young player in this league. Fortunately, Conley came to the rescue with his best game of the season — 18 points, eight assists and a plus-19 in 32 minutes.
Finch wants Dillingham’s focus to be on consistency of effort. It doesn’t mean he is going to play great every game, but the coach wants to see his young point guard pay attention to the game plan, take care of the ball and be in the right place on defense.
“I think it’s important to realize that these guys, sometimes it’s the first time in their life that they have never played,” Finch said. “It’s mentally challenging for those guys. They have to see the light at the end of the tunnel.”
Dillingham doesn’t have to squint to see the flicker down that long corridor. The minutes are starting to come. Finch did not close with him in the loss to Memphis on Monday. The veterans ahead of him have won here and earned their opportunities, just like Dillingham is doing now.
His teammates believe in him and see what he can bring to the table. Edwards recalled how a few Cavaliers players were chirping at Dillingham, which prompted the guard to go right back at them with buckets in the fourth quarter.
“His confidence reminds me of myself,” Edwards said with a grin.
Storm clouds have been hanging over this Wolves team all season long, dampening the spirits of a group that expected to contend for a title. The team needs a jolt. All the while, a little lightning bolt charges in the sky, just waiting to strike.
(Photo of Rob Dillingham and Anthony Edwards: David Sherman / NBAE via Getty Images)
Rob Dillingham, the highly-touted prospect from North Carolina, has been making waves in the basketball world with his impressive skills and potential. Dillingham, who recently declared for the NBA draft, is confident that he is ready to take on the challenges of the professional league. However, there are questions surrounding whether the Minnesota Timberwolves, who hold the first overall pick in the upcoming draft, agree with his assessment.
Dillingham’s talent is undeniable, as he has shown the ability to score from anywhere on the court and play solid defense. His speed, agility, and basketball IQ have impressed scouts and analysts, leading many to believe that he has the potential to be a star in the NBA. However, some critics have raised concerns about his size and strength, suggesting that he may need more time to develop before making an impact at the highest level.
The Timberwolves, who are in need of a dynamic guard to complement their young core, could see Dillingham as a potential fit for their team. With his scoring ability and playmaking skills, he could provide a much-needed boost to their offense. However, the team may also be considering other options with the top pick, such as a big man or a more experienced player.
As the draft approaches, all eyes will be on Rob Dillingham and the Timberwolves to see if they can come to an agreement on his future in the NBA. Will Dillingham get his chance to shine in the spotlight, or will the Timberwolves decide to go in a different direction? Only time will tell.
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Rob Dillingham, NBA spotlight, Timberwolves, basketball, professional sports, NBA draft, player development, Minnesota Timberwolves, basketball career, NBA prospects, basketball talent, NBA opportunities, NBA aspirations, sports news.
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