Sunday night featured the first loss for the Minnesota Timberwolves in almost two weeks. After Anthony Edwards’ viral callout of the team in the locker room, the Wolves banded together and turned that criticism into high-level play, re-finding their defensive identity and crushing four straight opponents.
But the loss to the Golden State Warriors was a reminder that although Minnesota is improving, they are not quite there yet. It is fairly obvious that the Timberwolves’ current problems are multi-faceted, but there is one dilemma that continues to rear its head, and that is concerning the team’s point guard play.
As the team’s starting point guard, Mike Conley has been up-and-down for the Wolves this season. However, we have seen that his presence on the floor and in the locker room is invaluable and not always related to his points, assists and shooting percentages. The main problem here has been that when Conley goes to the bench (or is sidelined due to injury) Minnesota begins to run into trouble.
The rookie Rob Dillingham was very solid in spot minutes during Conley’s period of being injured. But when Mike came back, Rob did not necessarily play as much as one may have expected. On top of that, Dillingham is now sidelined with his own injury. That leaves Chris Finch with the other two guys he has given minutes to at point guard this season: Donte DiVincenzo and Nickeil Alexander-Walker.
Not re-signing Monte Morris caused the backup point guard dilemma
While Conley was sitting, Finch tested out each of those two in the starting lineup, with mixed results at best. The truth is, neither DiVincenzo nor Alexander-Walker is a true point guard in the traditional sense. Both are better off playing the two guard, and operating in more off-ball roles. Donte and Nickeil obviously have their own strengths, but having to rely on either as your primary distributor or playmaker is not a good situation to be in.
With that in mind, we naturally start to think: how did the Timberwolves end up in this situation? Well, if we think back to this past offseason, we obviously recall the big moves first, like the Karl-Anthony Towns trade. But one decision that flew under the radar and is now being under-rated as a reason for the Wolves’ current problems is the decision to let Monte Morris walk.
Acquired by the team at the February trade deadline last season, Morris appeared in 27 games for the Timberwolves in the regular season and nine in the playoffs. While he is far from an All-Star caliber player, Monte provided value as a veteran ball-handler and a true point guard that is simply absent from the roster right now outside of Conley.
With Minnesota opting not to re-sign Morris, he joined the Phoenix Suns during the free agency period in July. You would usually not think of Monte as a true impact player, but the truth is that the Wolves are missing his production right now. If Tim Connelly and the front office could go back and do-over their free agency moves, they would likely want to have Morris back in a Timberwolves uniform.
